IMAGE  EVALUATION 
TEST  TARGET  (MT-3) 


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1.25 


UiiZA    M2.S 

mm  m22 
1^    12.0 


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-    6" 


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Photographic 

Sdences 

Corporation 


23  WeST  MAIN  STRICT 

WEBSTiR.N.Y.  14S30 

(716)  S72-4S03 


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CIHM/ICMH 

Microfiche 

Series. 


CEHM/ICMH 
Collection  de 
microfiches. 


Canadian  Institute  for  Historical  Microreproductions  /  Institut  Canadian  de  microreproductions  historiques 


Technical  and  Bibliographic  Notes/Notes  techniques  et  bibliographiques 


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Th 
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Th 
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Or 

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This  item  is  filmed  at  the  reduction  ratio  checked  below/ 

Ce  document  est  film6  au  taux  de  reduction  indiqu6  ci-dessous. 

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24X 


28X 


32X 


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ffilmage. 

Les  exemplalres  originaux  dont  la  couverture  en 
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par  le  premier  plat  e*  en  terminant  suit  par  la 
dernlAre  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impresslon  ou  d'illustration.  soit  par  le  second 
plat,  salon  le  cas.  Tous  les  autres  exempiairas 
uriginaux  sont  ffilmte  en  commandant  par  la 
premiere  page  qui  comporte  une  empreinte 
d'impresslon  ou  d'lilustration  et  en  terminant  par 
la  dernlAre  page  qui  comporte  une  telle 
empreinte. 

Un  des  symboies  suivants  apparaTtra  sur  la 
derniire  Image  de  cheque  microffiche,  selon  le 
cas:  le  symbols  — ft^  signiffie  "A  SUIVRE  ",  le 
symbols  y  signiffie  "FIN". 

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fflimAs  A  des  taux  de  reduction  diffff6rents. 
Loraque  le  document  est  trop  grand  pour  Atre 
reproduit  en  un  seul  cliche,  il  est  ffllmA  A  partir 
de  i'angle  supArieur  gauche,  de  gauche  A  droite, 
et  de  haut  en  bas,  en  prenant  le  nombre 
d'Images  nAcessaire.  Les  diagrammes  suivants 
illustrent  la  mithode. 


1 

2 

3 

t 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

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«^ 


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Single  Copy  Pamphlet  Covers 


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Size 

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X  7" 
X  8' 
X  8I/2" 
X  8 ' 
xlO' 
X  81/4" 

i3y2"xio" 

14"  X  8I/2" 
xlO" 
xll" 
xl2" 
xll" 
xl2" 


10' 
10' 
11" 
12" 
12" 
13" 


14" 
15" 
16" 
17" 
18 


Maximum     Maximum  Maximum     Maximum 

Capacity        Capacity  Capacity        Capacity 

1/2"  1"  1/2"  1" 

No.  4340        No.  4360  No.  4380  No.  4400 

4341  4361  4381  4401 

4342  4362  4382  4402 

4343  4363  4383  4403 

4344  4364  4384  4404 

4345  4365  4385  4405 

4346  4366  4386  4406 

4347  4367  4387  4407 

4348  4368  4388  4408 

4349  4369  4389  4409 

4350  4370  4390  4410 

4351  4371  4391  4411 

4352  4372  4392  4412 

4353  4373  4393  4413 

4354  4374  4394  4414 

4355  4375  4395  4415 

4356  4376  4396  4416 


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»X,T^    JltCy^ iX^^AiL, 


AMERICAN 


GEOLOGICAL  CLASSIFICATION 


*s 


AND 


Ccn/ZA^ 


'1-SjU.CC 


NOMENCLATURE 


BY 


JULES  MARCOU. 


CAMLRIDGE 

Massachusetts,  42  Garden  Street. 

Printed  for  the  author, 

By  the  Salem  Fress, 

May,  1888. 


m 


:1 


n 
vi 


mf 


AMERICAN 


GEOLOGICAL  CLASSIFICATION 


AND 


NOMENCLATURE 


I 


BY 


JULES  MARCOU. 


J    ^>- 


CAMBRIDGE 

Massachusetts,  42  Garden  Street. 

Printed  for  the  author, 

By  the  S&lem  Press, 

May,  1888. 


1    ^      ^         I  >         I 

I   *  ,      I  3        1  .    ; 

;    »    »    )   t  I     » 


'     »  I       S  J  I 


1  9 


»  s  t  »  1         a 


»         "  ;  1 


'<>.>i*4»-fc^j^^^'*.-s. 


I 


:V 


CONTENTS. 


I 


A 


I. 

II. 

III. 


IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 


XV. 


XVI. 


Introduction ' 

Primitive  or  Azoic  series • 

Taconlc  system ^ 

Order  of  discoveries  and  original  researches  on  the  Ta- 
conlc system ^^ 

Cumbrian  or  Champlaln  system 23 

Silurian  system 24 

Devonian  system 25 

Carboniferous  system      ...,.•••  26 

Dyassic  system 29 

Trlassic  system ^^ 

Jurassic  system ^^ 

Cretaceous  system *^ 

Lower  Tertiary  system *^ 

Upper  Tertiary  or  Helvetian  system 52 

Quaternary  and  Recent,  or  Modern  series         ...  63 

Glacial  epoch ^^ 

Living  glaciers ^^ 

Explanation  of  the  tabular  view  of  American  classification 

and  nomenclature ^^ 

Synchronism  and  Homotaxls 61 

The  Geological  map  of  Europe 64 

Conclusion ®' 

Tabular  view  of  American  classification  and  nomenclature  72 


'.,:  v*,'.-*i..S|«N^.*)lF:>tf(«.t 


AMERICAN  GEOLOGICAL  CLASSIFICATION  AND 
NOMENCLATURE. 


I.      iNTilODUCTrOK. 

Thk  movement  in  fiivor  of  the  uniformity  of  nomenclature, 
started  by  tlie  International  Geological  Congress,  althougli  prema- 
ture, calls  for  some  remarks  on  the  actual  standing  of  American 
classiflcations.  I  shall  confine  myself  to  stratigraphy  and  the 
history  of  American  nomenclature ;  the  eruptive  rocks  being  left 
apart. 

Classification  and  nomenclature  are  necessities  of  tlie  first  order, 
and  require  of  those  attending  to  them  knowledge  and  practical 
experience  of  rare  and  very  difflcult  attainment.  Mistakes  are 
sure  to  result  inevitably  to  all  persons  not  well  acquainted  with 
all  the  different  sides  of  the  question,  and  errors  are  always  at- 
tended with  loss  of  time  and  loss  of  confidence ;  for,  without  an 
exact  chronological  order  of  all  the  strata,  geology  falls  back  into 
an  inextricable  labyrinth,  a  mass  of  incoherent  and  undigestiblo 
facts  put  together  at  haphazard.  Nothing  is  so  much  wanted  and 
so  diflicult  to  establish  as  a  good  classification,  and  the  u:j  of  a 
cosmopolitan  nomenclature  acceptable,  easily  accessible  and  un- 
derstood by  all  geologists. 

In  America  the  progress  of  nomenclature  has  been  very  steady 
although  slow,  being  much  embarrassed  by  interested  persons,  who 
have  assumed  to  dictate  authoritatively  what  they  thought  were  the 
chronology  and  divisions  of  American  stratigraphy  ;  retarding  for 
years,  by  all  the  means  at  their  disposal,  the  acceptance  of  obser- 
vations and  classifications  made  by  geologists  better  qualified  and 
trained. 

A  summary  of  the  discoveries  and  the  opposition  made  to  their 
acceptance  is  necessary. 

II.    Primitive  oh  Azoic  Skries. 

The  study  of  the  crystalline  rocks  in  Europe  does  not  lead  one 
to  classify  them  into  stratigraphical  systems  with  geographical 
names,  notwithstanding  the  attempt  of  Dr.  Hicks  for  the  British 

(6) 


0  AMERICAN  OROLOOICAL 

islands  (Lcwisian,  Diinctiftn,  Arvoninn  nnd  Pchidian) ;  nnd  in 
Atncricn  uttoinpts  of  tliiH  i^ind  do  not  npponi'  to  Imvo  been  at* 
tended  by  bottcr  results,  altiioiigli  several  cfTorts  have  been  niado 
to  divide  tliese  roclts  into  ten  or  twelve  Hystcms  only  for  Canada, 
Lake  Snpcrior  and  Now  England.  Tlic  following  names  have  i)cen 
proposed  and  nsod  to  some  extent,  although  no  one  lias  over  been 
able  to  see  and  give,  with  any  degree  of  aceuracy,  the  exact  limits 
of  each  system,  nor  to  be  perfectly  satisfied  even  as  to  their  super- 
positions and  successions  .■  Laurentian,  Iluronian,  Terranovan, 
Montalban,  Norian  or  Lal)radorian,  Taconian  or  Itacolumltic,  Ani- 
niiku  (Animikic)  series,  Coatchiching,  Ogishke,  Vermillion  scries, 
Keewatin  (Kewatin)  and  Keweenawan.'  Not  one  of  these  sys- 
tems, except  the  Kewcenawan,  contains  fossils ;  notwithstanding 
the  attempt  made  to  record  a  lithological  specimen  as  the  remains 
of  immense  living  sponges,  called  Eozoon  Canadenae. 

Until  now  the  geological  survey  of  Canada,  which  seems  to  be 
the  leader  in  classifying  the  primitive  rocks  into  numerous  sys- 
tems, has  failed  to  recognize  and  name  with  any  degree  of  accuracy 
the  ditlerent  rocks.  For  instance,  the  chemist  and  mineralogist, 
Mr.  T.  Sterry  Hunt,  is  responsible  for  such  extraordinary  confusion 
as  to  "till  the  quartzites  of  Montmorency  Fall  near  Quebec,  gneiss! 
The  en  xtic  quartzites  and  quartz  of  No.  1  on  the  road  between 
Pointe  Levis  and  Notre  Dame  are  named  limestone  conglomerate! 
and  the  sandstone  lenticular  mass  marked  4*  on  the  same  '^Plan 
of  Pointe  Levis,"  published  in  1862  by  the  Canadian  survey,  is  re- 
corded as  a  magnesian  limestone ! 

With  such  lithological  errors — which  can  be  easily  controlled 
by  every  geologist  who  visits  Quebec — it  is  superfluous  to  discuss 
classifications.  The  lithology  of  Canada  needs,  not  only  a  care- 
ful revision,  but  a  complete  recasting,  before  attempting  anything 
in  the  way  of  nomenclature. 

What  is  needed  in  America  are  minute  lithological  studies  made 
b}'  able  observers  conversant  with  Comparative  Lithology,  not  only 
among  American  rocks,  but  also  with  European  crystalline  rocks  ; 
and  also  good  and  detailed  surveys  in  the  field. 

The  introduction  of  the  name ^j'c/zccan  requires  some  explanation. 

'The  copper-bearing  nielnpliyrs  nnd  conglomerntes,  conetitntlng  the  main  part  of  tlie 
KeweeiiHwaii,  are  not  priniilivc  roirks;  nnd  the  wliole  Byrtcni,  as  dellned  by  Mr.  U.  D. 
Irving,  is  much  younger.  Tlie  melaphyrs  contain  Orthoceraa,  like  the  diabase  of  Bo- 
hemia. 


mm 


CLASSIFICATION  AND  NOHBNCLATCRB.  7 

First  used  by  Mr.  J.  D.  Dana  in  1863,  Manual  ofOeolngtf,  p.  583, 
to  (iesigniite  tlio  "Hronzo  or  Arciuiic  period"  of  tlio  Preliistoric  or 
*'Ago  of  ninn,"  it  was  not  generally  accepted.  Mr.  Dana,  wanting 
to  keep  the  name  in  geology,  had  the  singular  origiiuil  idea  of  plac- 
ing it  at  the  bottom  instead  of  the  top  of  the  column  of  classificu- 
tlon, — a  backward  jump  of  the  whole  stratigra[>hic  scale  and  index, 
clianging  only  Archaic  period  into  Archcean  system. 

Archaios,  old,  ancient,  ap[)lies  to  the  whole  of  geological  science, 
and  not  to  a  partic  dar  epoch  ;  and  it  can  be  used  only  in  a  general 
wa}'.  Otherwise,  if  employed  for  a  group  or  system  of  rocks,  it  cre- 
ates confusion  in  regard  to  fossils  such  as :  Archuiopterix,  Archceo- 
cidaris,  Archivocyathiis,  Arclumoniacus^  etc.,  which  exist  in  strata 
and  systeujs  nuich  younger  than  the  so-called  Archiean  system. 

For  instance  we  have  the  Archaic  period  (Prehistoric),  Archaean 
systeuj  (Pre-Taconic)  on  tlie  one  hand,  and  Archuioptarix^  Archce- 
ocidoris,  Archceocyathus,  ArcIuronisctiSj  etc.,  fossils,  not  one  of 
whicli  is  to  be  found  in  either  the  Arcluic  or  the  Archujan.  Ar- 
chtean  is  one  of  those  useless  and  cumbersome  names  which  may 
well  be  dispensed  wilh.  The  terms  Primitive,  Crystalline  and  Azoic 
series  of  rocks  arc  far  better  and  stifllce  amply  for  all  demands. 


. 


III.    Taconic  System. 

I 

The  greatest  error  made  during  the  last  fifty  years  is  the  stub- 
born and  inconceivable  opposition  to  the  existence  of  the  Taconic 
system.  Too  many  persons  have  been  involved  in  the  contro- 
versy and  are,  even  now,  interested  in  either  suppressing  it  totally, 
or  at  least  partially,  not  to  expect  all  sorts  of  objections,  oppo- 
sitions and  even  trivial  dissertations. 

Billings  in  a  paper,  "Remarks  on  the  Taconic  controversy,"  Ca- 
nadian Naturalist,  April  and  July,  1872,  has  the  courage  to  point 
out  "the  constant  and  utmost  opposition  of  Messrs.  James  Plall 
and  T.  Sterry  Hunt."^     1  shall  add  several  other  names:  Messrs. 

>At  the  meeting  of  the  IiUcrnntional  Geoloj,iciil  CongroRB  at  Derlin,  in  1885,  Jir. 
James  Hall  Juined  McsHrs.  A.  Gcikic  and  T,  M.  lluglics,  in  order  to  ))revcnt  the  voting 
on  thoGonclUMions  presented  by  Prof.  G.  Dcwalijue,  Secretary  of  the  Commission  on  the 
uniforniity  of  nomenclature,  which  was  entirely  favorable  to  the  Taconic  system. 
The  postponement  until  the  meeting  in  London,  In  1888,  of  the  subject  of  divisions  of 
the  second  order  for  the  Lower  Paioiozoic  series,  on  the  ground  that  it  "was  mainly 
an  English  question,"  was  a  manwuvru  on  the  part  of  those  opposed  to  rendering  Jus- 
tice to  the  Just  claim  of  American  geology. 

Those  wlio  succeeded  in  withdrawing  Professor  Dewalqne's  proposition  have  in 
view  the  interest  of  £ni,Ush  geologists;  I'oping  to  have,  at  the  Loudon  meeting,  a  nia- 


./ 


8  AMERICAN   OKOLOaiCAL  Cl^:^  A^  .    ^  .  W'\Xf*At^ 

W.  E.  Logan,  James  D.  Dana,  the  two  Professors  Rogers^  and  - 

C.  H.  Hitchcock.    The  part  taken  by  these  liovcn  united  adver-/g*^  IjL- 

saries  of  the  Taconic  system  is  inexcusable,  and  even  odious.  ^ 

Incapacity  in  fleUl  stratigraphy  and  lack  of  practical  knowledge 
of  geology  and  palceontology  on  an  unprecedented  magnitude  have 
never  shown  a  bolder  front. 

From  the  beginning,  the  paUeontologist  of  the  state  of  New 
York,  Mr.  James  Hall,  has  been  at  fault,  ignoring  the  primordial 
fauna,  its  value,  its  true  position  in  stratigraph}',  even  fifteen 
years  after  it  had  been  stated  in  1346  by  Joachim  Barrande  ;  and 
rejecting  the  good  observations  and  determinations  of  Dr.  Emmons, 
when  it  was  he,  Hall,  who  was  faulty  and  incorrect. 

The  ignorance  displayed  by  all  the  opponents  is  startling,  and 
can  only  be  compared  with  their  arrogance  and  their  malicious  acts. 
A  few  examples  will  suffice. 

1.  Disappearance  of  three  thousand  copies  of  the  AgricuUtiral 
and  Oeolngical  Map  of  the  state  of  New  York,  by  Dr.  Enmions, 
1844,  a  large  map,  in  four  sheets,  showing  the  extent  of  the  Ta- 
conic system  in  New  York,  Massachusetts  .";;•;  Vermont. 

2.  The  specimens,  illustrating  the  Taconic  system  collected 
and  arranged  by  Dr.  Emmons  in  the  State  Museum  of  Natural 
History  at  Albany,  all  taken  out,  on  an  ex  parte  statement  made 
by  Mr.  James  Hall. 

3.  At  the  meeting  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Science,  at  Alban3\  in  1851,  William  B.  Rogers 
said  in  the  geological  section :  "that  as  for  the  Taconic  system,  it 


joiity  nminly  composed  of  Englishmen,  who  will  control  the  decisions  and  votes  of  the 
Congress,  and  iiccept  the  proposition  arrived  at — if  any  compromise  can  be  made — be* 
tweon  tlie  imrtisansof  Sedgwic-k  and  tliose  of  Murchlson. 

jv.  preliminary  meeting  of  tlio  Commission  of  nonienclntiire  was  held  lately — Ang.  30 
to  Sept.  6,  1887— at  Manchester  (England),  in  which  a  Canailian  chemist,  Mr.  Sterry 
Htint,  reprcsent'iig  "the  united  opposition  of  Dr.  Emmons'  contemporaries,"— just  as 
Mr.  J.  Hall  at  the  Uerlin  Congress — prevented  onco  more  the  question  of  priority,  and 
our  just  claim  from  being  properly  considered. 

In  the  Compte-rendu  de$  st'nnces  (i  Manthester,  Hologne,  1887,  we  read  at  page  10:  "M. 
G.  Dewalque  at^ks  Mr.  Sterry  Hunt,  if  it  Is  not  riglit  to  consider  the  name  Taconic  which 
can  be  appMcd  to  one  of  the  three  systems  in  discussion,  and  which  presents  the  ad- 
vantoge  of  giving  a  place  to  American  Ocology."  Mr.  Sterry  Hunt  answers  "that  tlie 
Lower  Taconic  is  Archn?an,  and  the  UpperTaconic  is  Cambrian.  Historically,  the  last 
name  has  superiority  over  the  llrst.  licsides,  ho  does  not  believe  tliat  the  Amerioaa 
geologists  claim  its  maintenance." 

With  two  such  rcpiescntativcs  before  the  International  Commission  of  Nomenclature, 
the  American  interest  has  |t"oat  danger  of  being  jeopardized,  and  not  properly  ac- 
knowlcilged  or  defended.  (See  also:  On  the  use  of  the  name  7'ii;';o»»ic  by  Jules  Marcou 
in  Proceed.  Boston  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.,  vol.  xxni,  pp.  347,  348,  March  2,  1887), 


.li. 


J 


CLASSiriOATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE.  9 

is  dead!  dead  I !  dead!  1 1  with  a  significant  pointing  of  his  finger 
to  Dr.  Eirmons."' 

4.  Mr.  James  D.  Dana  refused  to  publisii  Dr.  Emmons'  "re- 
marks upon  Logan's  Report  wlien  he  announced  liis  Iluronian 
system,  tliough  tliey  were  courteous  in  tlie  extreme. "*  Emmons 
claimed  thattiie  Iluronian  was  only  a  part  of  his  Taconic  syb.om. 

5.  It  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  I  was  al)le  to  publisii 
the  letters  of  Barrande,  being  aslied  repeatedly  by  friends  of  Lo- 
gan and  Hall  not  to  put  them  in  print. 

But  even  more.  A  very  short  resume  of  my  communication  to 
the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History,  October  17,  1860,  made  by 
the  Secretary,  was  considered  by  the  "Publishing  Committee"  as 
sufficient,  although  the  letters  are  only  mentioned  without  any  ex- 
tracts whatever ;  and  it  required  the  powerful  intervention  of  L. 
Agassiz,  in  order  to  have  my  paper  published  in  full  {Proceed. 
Boston  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.,  vol.  vii,  p.  357  and  p.  3G9,  Boston,  1861). 

As  soon  as  published,  the  Barrande  letters  were  taken  posses- 
sion of  by  the  editors  of  the  Amei'ican  Journal  of  /Science,  of  the 
Canadian  Naturalist  and  of  the  Report  on  the  Oeology  of  Vermont ^ 
under  an  altered  and  false  title  ;  and,  because  I  signalized  that  un- 
scrupulous and  mean  act,  I  stand  as  the  only  fellow  of  the  Boston 
Society  of  Natural  Ilistorj'  who  has  ever  been  publicly  censured. 

It  is  at  the  end  of  vol.  viii  of  the  Proceedings  where,  in  the  Er- 
rata, p.  310,  the  "  Publishing  Committee  "  point  out  my  footnote  on 
page  240,  in  severe  and  unjust  terms,  in  order  to  please  Mr.  J.  D. 
Dana,  who.  after  altering  and  falsifying  the  title  of  my  paper,  was 
bold  enough  to  ask  an  investigation  against  me.  A  "Special  Com- 
mittee" was  appointed,  and  its  report  exculpated  me  from  all  blame 
and  refused  the  censure  called  for  by  Dana,  and  nevertheless, 
passing  over  the  report  of  the  "Special  Conunitt-:?e,"  I  have  been 
censured  by  the  "  Publishing  Committee,"  for  having  maintained 
the  integrity  and  exactness  of  the  title  used  in  the  P-oceedings,  and 
for  defending  my  property.  After  that  most  unjust  blame  against 
a  fellow  member,  I  did  not  withdraw  from  the  society,  but  it  pre- 
vented me  for  twenty-five  years  from  continuing  my  reading  of 
geological  papers  before  it;  and  I  have  been  ol»liged,  in  order  to 
publish  my  observations  on  American  geology,  to  tlo  it  either  at 

Un  a  letter  of  T>r.  Emmons  to  J.   Marcou,  dntod  29  Hoc,  I860,  |>ai-tly  publiBlied  in 
The  Taconic  $yttvm  nnil  its  position,  etc.,  p.  188,  eiinibrUlgu,  1886, 
"The  Biime  letter  iind  paper. 


10 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


riti 


my  own  expense  in  Cambridge,  or  to  liave  recourse  to  foreign  pe- 
riodicals in  France  and  in  Germany. 

It  is  always  disagreeable  and  even  detestable  to  be  obliged  to 
speak  of  one's  self;  but  it  is  unfortunately  for  me,  the  only  way 
to  maintain  my  discoveries  and  observations,  which  are  constantly 
attacked  or  passed  over  silently  by  almost  all  those  studying  the 
same  subjects.  In  other  sciences,  such  as  chemistry,  physics,  as- 
tronomy, zoology,  physiology,  botany,  etc.,  it  is  always  easy  to  con- 
trol new  facts  and  discoveries,  by  repeating  carefully  the  obser- 
vations in  laboratories.  It  is  not  so  in  practical  geology ;  for  the 
laboratories  are  the  whole  surface  of  the  earth,  and  you  must  go  on 
each  spot  to  see  for  yourself.  But,  besides,  many  geologists  when 
in  the  field  do  not  know  how  to  observe,  or  are  able  only  to  observe 
a  small  portion  of  the  phenomena  spread  before  their  eyes,  neglect- 
ing most  important  points,  and  drawing  false  conclusions.  A 
very  easy  and  frequent  way  to  impose  and  ventilate  geological  er- 
rors, is  to  say,  "it  appeared  at  the  time  to  be  the  generally  ac- 
cepted opinion"  (J.  D.  Dana's  American  Journ.  Sci.,  third  scries, 
vol.  xxxui,  p.  416,  1887),  when  too  often  those  who  say  so  have 
done  all  in  their  power  to  impose  and  maintain  the  errors  they  are 
lamenting,  trying  as  best  they  could  to  extricate  themselves  from 
their  false  position, 

It  is  much  more  easy  to  prevent,  the  truth  being  accepted  in  ge- 
ology, by  the  ver}'  nature  of  practical  observations  in  the  field, 
Ihan  in  any  other  science,  and  the  facility  of  maintaining  errors  is 
constantly  made  use  of  by  all  interested  parties. 

But,  even  in  geology,  errors  must  come  to  an  end.  Forty  or  fifty 
years,  if  great  for  the  life  of  an  observer,  are  little  in  the  history  of 
progress.  Truth  is  sure  to  have  the  upper  hand  ;  and  there  is  noth- 
ing else  to  do  for  the  original  discoverers  and  honest  and  exact 
observers,  but  to  maintain  sternly  and  without  flagging  their  views, 
opinions  and  discoveries,  against  all  opposition,  obstruction,  denial, 
or  studied  silence. 

This  is  my  excuse  for  speaking  of  myself  so  often  in  this  me- 
moir, having  no  choice,  and  being  unwilling  to  lose  observations 
made  during  forty  years  of  my  life,  and  often  under  extremely 
difficult,  even  perilous,  circumstances.  I  am  the  first  geologist 
WHO  has  made  a  geological  section  from  the  Mississippi  river  to 
t  iC  Pacific  shores,  determining  and  naming  carefully  all  the  dif- 
ferent systems  of  rocks  existing  in  half  the  continent  of  North 


CLASSIFICATION  AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


11 


America  (1853-1854) ;  and  I  have  defended  the  Taconic  system, 
single-handed  almost,  during  twenty-seven  years  (1860-1887) ;  two 
practical  geological  facts,  which  it  will  be  most  unjust  to  blot  out 
of  my  record  as  an  American  geologist. 

6.  The  geological  survey  of  Canada  not  only  did  not  help  me 
in  any  way,  when  I  went  there  in  1861,  '62  and  '63,  to  investigate 
the  Taconic  rocks,  on  the  pressing  invitation  of  one  member  of  the 
survey  ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  an  assistant  of  the  survey  was  sent 
after  me,  to  see  and  report  my  doings  in  the  vicinity  of  Quebec,  to 
the  director  Logan. 

7.  Mr.  James  D.  Dana  has  given  a  "List  of  papers  on  the  Ta- 
conic system"  (Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xix,  Feb.,  1880,  p.  153) 
partial  and  most  incomplete,  from  which  he  has  excluded  almost  all 
my  papers  on  the  subject,  as  well  as  all  those  of  Barrande  and 
Perry.  Mr.  Dana  pretends  to  make  a  classification  of  those  ad- 
verse to  and  of  those  in  favor  of  the  Pre-Silurian  (Pre-Potsdam) 
age  of  the  Taconic  system ;  but  he  has  associated  with  Dr.  Em- 
mons and  Mr.  Marcou,  in  the  second  division,  three  of  the  most 
constant  and  bitter  opponents  of  the  Taconic.  And,  finally,  in 
accordance  with  his  usual  practice  of  giving  credit  to  those  to  whom 
it  does  not  belong,  Mr.  Dana  pretends  that  the  Lower  Silurian  is 
called  Champlain  division  by  Mather,  when  it  is  an  unquestionable 
fact  that  Dr.  Emmons  is  the  originator  of  the  Champlain  group. 


Order  of  discoveries  and  original  researches  on  the 

Taconic  system. 

1809.  Macijre  in  his  first  geological  map  of  the  United  States 
colors  as  "Transition  rocks"  the  eastern  side  of  the  Hudson  river 
from  Hudson  city  towards  Poughkeepsie.  By  transition  rocks,  he 
means  limestone,  greywacke,  flinty  slates  and  trap. 

1817-18.  Maclure  in  his  second  geological  map  colors  as  "Tran- 
sition rocks"  all  the  eastern  band,  extending  from  the  Canada  line 
down  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Champlain,  through  Vermont,  east- 
ern New  York,  western  Massachusetts  to  Tappan  sea  in  tlie  Hudson 
river ;  a  quite  accurate  geographical  distribution  of  the  Taconic 
system,  and  very  similar  to  the  band  colored  as  Taconic  in  the 
Agricultural  and  Geological  map  of  Neiv  Yorky  by  Dr.  Emmons, 
1844. 

1819.  C.  Devey  gives  a  sketch  of  the  mineralogy  of  the  Ta- 
conic range,  near  Williams  College. 


12 


AMERICAN   OEOLOOICAL 


1824.  C.  Devey  with  the  assistance  of  his  pupil  Dr.  E.  Einmons 
publishes  A  Geological  map  of  the  county  of  Berkshire ^  Mdss.^  and  of 
a  small  part  of  the  adjoining  states;  with  a  sl^etch  of  the  geology 
and  mineralogy, — a  first  attempt  to  systematize  and  classify  the 
rocks  of  the  Taconic  region. 

181&-24-28-32.  A.  Eaton,  in  four  different  publications,  gives 
sections,  classifications  and  arrangements  of  the  rocks  of  the  vi- 
cinity of  Williams  College  and  the  Taconic  range,  which  are  rather 
confused  and  certainly  without  any  piogress,  on  what  was  already 
known.  Like  Macluie  and  Dek^ey,  be  refers  a  part  of  the  rocks 
of  the  Taconic  area  to  ll?e  Primit've  und  Transition  rocks ;  and  the 
discovery  by  Vanuxem  in  1829,  that  all  the  New  York  strata  belong 
to  the  Transition  series,  was  not  accepted  by  Eaton,  except  for  the 
Calciferous  sandrock,  and  the  Trenton  called  "  shell  limerock  at 
Trenton  Falis"  of  the  Calcarious  (sic)  formation;  all  the  rest  from 
the  Utica  slates  included  were  referred  by  him  to  the  secondary  rocks. 
Whatever  may  have  been  Eaton's  success  as  a  teacher  and  a  col- 
lector of  specimens,  he  was  certainly  not  a  classificator,  and  his 
nomenclatures  of  1818-24-28-32  are  all  of  doubtful  value  and  of 
little  consequence  in  comparison  with  Devey's  geological  map  of 
Berkshire  of  1824. 

1829.  L.  Vanuxem  discovered,  during  1827  and  1828,  that  all 
the  secondary  rocks  of  Maclure,  Cleaveland  and  Eaton,  in  the 
states  of  New  York,  Ohio,  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  Virginia, 
were  Transition  rocks,  and  of  a  "greater  geological  antiquity" 
than  admitted  until  then  (Amer.  Journ.  Sci.^  vol.  xvi,  254).  It  was 
the  first  great  step,  towards  rational  classification  and  a  good 
nomenclature  of  the  American  paleeozoic  rocks. 

1838-42.  Dr.  E.  Emmons  discovers,  below  the  Potsdam  sand- 
stone, the  great  Taconic  system. 

1840-43.  W.  W.  Mather  originates  the  Hudson  river  group  in 
which  he  places  all  the  slates  west  and  east  of  the  valley  of  the 
Hudson,  synchronizing  it  with  the  Frankfort  group  and  Pulaski 
shales.  He  declares  that,  in  the  valley  of  the  Hudson,  the  strata 
are  "confusion  worse  confounded ;"  and  that  the  breaks  or  frac- 
tures "have  deranged  all  the  rocks  of  the  Champlain  division  and 
packed  them  together,  helter-skelter,  in  the  utmost  confusion." 
He  describes  the  Taconic  system  of  Dr.  Emmons,  as  confined  to 
the  rocks  forming  the  Williamstown  mountain  range,  and  he  thinks 
that  they  "blend  into  the  Champlain  division  on  the  one  hand,  and 
into  the  primary  rocks  on  the  other."    As  a  conclusion,  Mather 


mm 


CLASSIFICATION  AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


18 


considers  "the  Taconic  rocks  are  the  same  in  ages  as  those  of  the 
Champlain  division,  modified  in  character  b3'  metamorphic  agency." 
1844.  Dr.  Emmons  publishes  his  Taeonic  system,  with  cliarac- 
teristic  and  special  fossils.  It  contains  the  first  discovery  and  de- 
scription  of  the  Primordial  fauna  1  all  the  world  over,  a  discovery 
proved  and  advocated  by  Barrande,  and  which  the  adversaries  ot 
Emmons  are  trying  —  even  now  (March  1888  in  Amer.  Joum. 
Sci) — to  blot  out  from  the  record  of  American  geology,  and  to 
replace  by  that  part  of  the  Cambrian  system  in  which  Sedgwick  did 
not  find  a  fauna,  and  about  whose  true  sequence  and  exact  strati- 
graphical  divisions  he  knows  almost  nothing. 

1846.  Dr.  Emmons  reproduces  his  Taconic  system  in  Agricul- 
ture of  New  York,  with  an  appendix  and  a  geological  map  show- 
ing for  ilie  first  time,  the  band  of  Taconic  rocks  from  Canada  to 
New  Jersey.  The  map — three  thousand  copies — was  suppressed 
by  interested  parties,  and  was  not  issued  until  about  1877,  when 
some  m'.^^ilatcd  copies  were  distributed  by  the  state  librarian  at 
Albany.  Finally,  in  1887,  the  map,  as  dressed  and  colored  by  Em- 
mons with  the  full  title,  has  at  last  come  out. 

1847.  Mr.  James  Hall,  in  Paleontology  of  New  York,  vol.  i,  p. 
319,  does  not  recognize  the  Primordial  fauna  and  ignores  the  posi- 
tion of  the  rocks  of  the  Taconic  system,  which  he  thinks  are  clearly 
Hudson  river  group  acted  upon  by  gradual  metamorphism. 

He  says  that  the  fossils  described  by  Dr.  Emmons  are  'Hine- 
quivocally"  identical  with  well-known  species  in  the  Hudson  river 
group  (upper  part  of  the  second  fauna) ;  regarding  the  Atopa  tri- 
lineatus  as  "unquestionably"  the  Calymene  Beckii  of  the  Utica 
slates,  one  of  the  grossest  errors  ever  made  by  a  palseontologist ; 
and  that  the  Elliptocephalus  asaphoides  belongs  to  a  Lower  Silu- 
rian (second  fauna)  type,  closely  related  to  the  genus  Oxigia  or 
Asaphus,  another  great  palaeontological  mistake. 

1866-69-60.  Dr.  Emmons  continues  to  describe  the  Taconic 
system,  adding  new  fossils  to  the  primordial  fauna  of  America, 
and  synchronizing  it,  in  1860,  with  the  Bohemian  primordial  zone 
of  Joachim  Barrande. 

1868.  In  an  article  entitled :  "Trilobites  of  the  shales  of  the 
Hudson  river  group,"  Mr  James  Hall  describes  three  trilobites  of 
Georgia,  as  Hudson  river  group  fossils,  ignoring  their  primordial 
characteristics,  and  the  meaning  of  palaeontological  laws,  as  re- 
vealed in  the  primordial  zone  of  Bohemia  and  Scandinavia. 


14 


AMERICAN  OROLOOICAL 


It  is  in  this  small  paper,  printed  under  four  different  titles,  in 
less  than  three  years,  that  Mr.  Hall,  in  order  to  strengthen  his 
opinion  that  the  Georgia  trilobitic  beds  should  be  placed  in  the  up- 
per part  of  the  Cliamplain  system,  far  above  the  Trenton  groups, 
and  also  to  cover  his  error  as  to  tlie  true  position  of  the  primor- 
dial fauha,  w.ote  his  celebrated  authoritative  phrase,  now  legen- 
dary among  American  geologists :  '*  It  would  be  quite  superfluous 
for  me  to  add  one  word  in  support  of  the  opinion  of  the  most  able 
stratigraphical  geologist  (William  E,  Logan)  of  the  American  con- 
tinent." 

I860.  Mr.  Jules  Marcou  uses  the  name  Taconic,  in  a  commu- 
nication before  the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History,  reading 
three  letters  of  J.  Barrande  addressed  to  him,  on  the  primor- 
dial characters  of  the  Braintree,  Georgia  and  Pointe-L6vis  trilo- 
bites,  and  stating  that  the  Taconic  system,  misunderstood  until 
then  by  the  adversaries  of  Emmons,  must  take  its  place  and  its 
riglit  usurped  by  the  Hudson  river  group  and  a  sort  of  metamor- 
phic  Charaplain  division,  extending  even  so  far  up,  according  to 
Messrs.  Hall  and  Hitchcock,  as  to  include  the  Upper  Silurian,  the 
Devonian  and  even  the  Carboniferous,  a  certainly  very  rich  and 
grand  solid  series  of  metamorphosed  strata.  It  was  the  first  ray  of 
light  in  favoi'  of  Dr.  Emmons  and  his  Taconic  system.  Unhappily, 
it  was  also  the  last ;  for  that  persecuted  and  ablest  of  all  the  Amer- 
ican geologists  was  shortly  after  shut  up  in  North  Carolina  by  the 
civil  war  of  1861,  where  he  died  in  1863  without  knowing  the 
other  efforts  made  by  Barrande,  Billings  and  Marcou. 

My  communication  of  the  letters  of  Barrande,  with  my  remarks 
on  the  Taconic  rocks  of  the  vicinity  of  Quebec,  beforfe  the  Bos- 
ton Society  of  Natural  History,  Oct.  18,  1860,  was  like  a  thunder- 
bolt in  a  clear  sky.  Its  first  result  was  the  immediate  stopping  of 
the  printing  of  three  large  works :  first,  the  third  volume  of  the 
"Palseontology  of  New  York"  by  James  Hall,  the  introduction  of 
which  was  already  heralded  in  the  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.^  Jan.  1861,  p. 
125,  as  handling,  "with  masterly  skill  the  difficult  subjects  con- 
nected with  the  proper  classification  of  the  lower  horizons  of  life 
in  our  planet ;"  second,  the  "Geology  of  Vermont ;"  and  third,  the 
Geology  of  Canada ;"  besides  the  issue  of  the  geological  map  of 
Vermont  and  the  geological  map  of  Canada ;  the  publication  of 
those  five  geological  and  palaeontological  works  was  at  once  inter- 
rupted, as  soon  as  my  paper  had  been  issued  at  the  end  of  Decern- 


CLASSIFICATION  AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


15 


ber,  1860,  and  many  chanjres,  alterations  and  addiMons  were  nif.de. 
The  introduction  of  the  third  volume  of  the  "Paloeontology  of  New 
Yorlc"  was  entirely  recast,  with  "  the  proper  classification  of  the 
lower  horizons  of  life  on  our  planet "  prudently  left  entirely  out. 
However,  all  the  changes  and  alterations  in  those  five  publications, 
all  made  in  order  to  explain  or  cover,  as  far  as  practicable,  the  pre- 
cedent mistakes,  are  all  erroneous  and  it  is  merely  a  change  from 
Charybdis  to  Scylla. 

1861.  M.  Joachim  Barrande,  in  a  very  remarkable  memoir, 
published  in  Paris,  recognizes,  in  the  Taconic  system,  his  own  Pri- 
mordial fauna  and  zone,  and  declares  openly  and  positively  that 
Dr.  Emmons  has  the  priority  in  the  discovery  of  the  Primordial 
fauna.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  regard  the  determination  of  the 
Taconic  fossils  by  Mr.  J.  Hall  as  erroneous,  and  his  conclusion  in 
regard  to  stratigraphy  as  a  great  mistake. 

1861-86.  Mr,  Jules  Marcou,  during  a  quarter  of  a  century  in 
ten  memoirs  published  in  America  and  in  Europe,  maintains  the 
"Taconic  system,"  adding  to  it  the  Potsdam  sasidstone  as  its  upper- 
most division.  He  advocates  the  accuracy  of  the  Taconic  system 
not  only  in  the  main  but  in  most  of  the  details,  as  it  was  propounded 
by  its  founder.  Dr.  Emmons. 

In  his  memoir  of  Dec.  10,  1884,  "The  Taconic  system  and  its  po- 
sition in  stral'graphic  geology"  {Proceed.  Amer.  Acad.  Arts  and  Sci- 
ences, vol.  xii,  p.  174,  Cambridge,  1885),  Mr.  Marcou  gives,  on  p. 
221,  a  vertical  and  general  section  of  the  Taconic  system,  with  a 
tabular  view,  p.  224,  showing,  for  the  first  time,  the  division  of  the 
Taconic  series  into  three  systems,  each  one  characterized  by  a  spe- 
cial fauna ;  first,  the  Infra- Primordial  fauna,  containing  all  the 
fossiliferous  strata  below  the  horizon  of  the  Paradoxides  or  Lower 
Taconic ;  second,  the  true  Primordial  fauna  as  characterized  by 
Barrande  with  its  zone  of  Paradoxides  and  Olenellus,  or  Middle 
Taconic ;  and  third,  the  Upper  Taconic  or  Supra- Primordial  fauna 
or  zone  of  the  Dikelocephalus,  containing  primordial  types  united 
with  types  whose  great  development  takes  place  in  the  second  fauna 
or  Champlain  system. 

1863-82.  In  1862,  Mr.  C.  Fred  Hartt,  of  New  Brunswick,  came 
as  a  student  at  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology,  and  was 
placed  by  Agassiz  under  my  direction.  During  1863,  Hartt 
showed  me  fossils  collected  round  St.  John,  by  Messrs.  C.  R.  and 
G.  F.  Matthew.  I  referred  them  at  once  to  the  Primordial  fauna, 
telling  Hartt  that  they  were  analogous  to  the  fossils  of  the  Georgia 


,.— ^  v.„„,4twMpME< 


16 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


slates ;  and  I  put  into  his  Imnds  specimens  of  the  Primordial  fauna 
collected  by  me,  in  1861  and  1862  at  Georgia  and  Swanton,  Ver- 
mont, and  at  Pointe  L6vis,  Canada ;  showing  him  also  the  identity 
of  the  forms  of  the  American,  Bohemian  and  Scandinavian  primor- 
dial fossils. 

Hartt  published  a  "Preliminary  notice  of  a  fauna  of  the  Primor- 
dial Period  in  the  vicinity  of  St.  John,  N.  B."  in  ^^Observations  on 
the  Geology  of  Southern  New  Brunswick,  by  L.  W.  Bailey,  pp.  30 
and  31,  Fredericton,  1865,  in  which  he  says  distinctly  that  the 
fauna  of  the  vicinity  of  St.  John  is  of  the  Primordial  period,  ac- 
knowledging the  kindness  of  Professor  Agassiz,  and  his  sugges- 
tions and  help.  My  name  is  not  quoted,  because  it  was  the  custom, 
by  courtesy,  to  refer  everything  which  passed  in  the  Museum  to 
its  founder  and  director,  Louis  Agassiz. 

Although  well  acquainted  with  the  controversy  I  was  tlien  car- 
rying on  in  favor  of  the  Taconic  system,  Hartt  and  Bailey  used 
only  the  names  Silurian  and  Quebec  group,  according  to  the  view 
of  the  Director  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  Canada,  W.  E.  Logan. 

Hartt  did  not  publish  tlie  primordial  fossils  collected  by  Messrs. 
Matthew,  Bailey  and  himself  until  1868,  when  they  appeared  as 
a  part  ot  Acadian  Geology,  second  edition,  by  J.  W.  Dawson,  at 
pp.  643  to  657,  London.  They  are  referred  to  the  Lower  Silurian 
of  Murchison,  without  any  notice  whatever  of  the  Taconic  system. 
But  more,  Mr.  Dawson  says :  'These  beds  (meaning  the  series  at 
St.  John)  are  in  the  highest  degree  important  in  a  geological  point 
of  view,  as  their  fossils  establish  for  the  Jirst  time  on  the  American 
continent  a  series  of  fossiliferous  beds  older  than  the  Potsdam 
sandstone,  hitherto  supposed  by  American  geologists  to  be  our 
oldest  Palaeozoic  group,  etc."  (Acadian  Geology,  p.  638).  And 
further  on  he  adds :  "This  formation  has  as  yet  {sic)  been  known  as 
the  St.  John  group;  but  I  think  this  name  unsuitable,  .  .  .  and 
would  therefore  propose  .  .  .  the  name  Acadian  Group,  by  which 
I  hope  it  will  be  known  to  geologists  in  whatever  part  of  America 
it  may  be  recognised." 

In  the  third  edition  of  his  work,  London,  1878,  Mr.  Dawson 
repeats  the  same  inaccurate  statement,  changing  only  the  name 
Lower  Silurian  into  "Middle  or  Lower  Cambrian,  known  in  Eng- 
land as  the  Menevian :"  and  using  the  expression  "Acadian  se- 
ries" of  St.  John,  instead  of  "Acadian  group." 

It  is  impossible  to  excuse  such  omissions  and  statements  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Dawson,  who,  in  1868,  and  even  in  1878,  pretended  to 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMKNCLATURE. 


17 


ignore  and  pass  over  all  the  o))8ei'vations  and  publications  of  Dr. 
Emmons  on  fossiliferous  beds  older  than  tlio  Potsdam  sandstone, 
all  the  remarks  and  conclusions  or  Barrunde,and  all  my  researches 
on  the  Taconlc  and  the  Primordial  fauna  in  America. 

To  Messrs.  C.  R.  and  G.  F.  Matthew  is  due  the  discovery  of 
the  Taconic  fauna  at  Portland  in  the  city  of  St.  John  (New  Bruns- 
wick) in  1862,  and  to  Mr.G.  F.  Matthew  are  due  the  excellent  and 
numerous  descriptions  of  all  the  fossils  and  sections,  showing  that 
at  or  near  St.  John  the  Taconic  system  is  well  developed  and  com- 
plete with  its  three  faunas,  the  Primordial,  the  Infra-Primordial, 
and  the  Supra-Priraordi'   . 

The  name  "St.  John  group,"  applied  to  the  division  of  the  third 
order  which  contains  only  the  Primordial  fauna,  was  first  given  by 
Hartt  in  1865 ;  and  ever  since  Mr.  G.  F.  Matthew  has  always 
used  it,  with  the  same  meaning  (see  Illustrations  of  the  fauna  of 
the  St.  John  group,  1882,  etc.).  It  had  priority  over  "Acadian 
group"  proposed  only  three  years  later,  in  1868,  by  Mr.  Dawson, 
who  simply  transferred  the  historical  names  of  "Acadian"  and 
"Acadia"  into  geology  in  imitation  of  Murchison's  "Silurian"  and 
"Siluria,"  without  even  giving  any  observations  of  his  own  on  the 
stratigraphy  or  palaeontology  of  the  vicinity  of  St.  John. 

Mr.  Matthew  has  not  used  yet  the  name  Taconic,  calling  Cam- 
brian all  the  strata  round  St.  John.  By  Cambrian,  he  dues  not 
mean  the  true  Cambrian  of  Sedgwick,  containing  a  fauna,  but  only 
that  part  in  which  Sedgwick  did  not  find  a  single  fossil. 

1880.  Mr.  S.  "W.  Ford  acknowledges  Dr.  Emmons'  "great  ser- 
vice," in  opposing  the  Hudson  river  group  doctrine,  and  admits 
his  "signally  good  work  ;"  but  says,  that  his  favorite  system  (the 
Taconic)  is  a  failure — certainly  a  very  strange  and  rather  para- 
doxical way  of  recognizing  his  good  work  and  great  service. 

1886-87.  Mr.  C.  D.  Walcott  says :  "Dr.  Emmons  deserves  great 
credit  for  the  work  that  he  did."  But  misled  by  the  erroneous  no- 
tion constantly  and  perversely  put  forward  and  maintained  by 
Mr.  Dana,  that  the  Taconic  area,  as  originated  by  Emmons,  is  of 
Lower  Silurian  age,  he  regrets  not  to  apply  the  name  Taconic  to 
the  formation  of  the  Georgia  horizon,  using  instead  the  name  Mid- 
dle Cambrian.  In  doing  this  Mr.  Walcott  does  not  mean  to  syn- 
chronize the  Georgia  formation  with  the  Middle  Cambrian  (Tre- 
madoc  slates  and  Lingula  flags  of  Wales — Sedgwick),  creating  a 
new  confusion  almost  unconsciously ;  but  only  meaning  a  Middle 
2 


' 


18 


AMERICAN   aXOLOOIOAL 


Cambrian  according  to  his  view,  which  limits  tlie  Cambrian  to  only 
one  system,  tlie  Primordial  fauna  of  Biirrande,  an  interpretation 
entirely  ditTerent  and  opposite  to  Sedgwiclc's  classiflcation.  Soon 
after,  however,  Mr.  Walcott  has  the  advantage  to  recognize  that 
the  original  Taconic  area  is  formed  of  rocks  of  the  Primordial  zone, 
as  well  as  tlie  upper  Taconic  of  Washington  county ;  and  in  two 
papers  read  in  January  and  April  1887,  at  Washington,  before  sci- 
entiflc  societies,  he  accepts  tlie  '^Taconic  system"  in  the  ixiain,  and 
uses  the  name  as  the  title  of  his  two  memoirs.^ 

1888.  (March  31). — As  predicted  in  my  foot-note  the  adversa- 
ries of  the  Taconic  system  have  just  begun  a  new  attack.  Led  or 
more  properly  misled  by  Mr.  James  D.  Dana,  Mr.  Walcott  is  trac- 
ing back  his  steps,  and  appears  now  for  the  second  and  even  third 
time  as  a  strong  opponent  of  Dr.  Emmons,  and  against  the  just 
claim  of  American  geology  for  the  priority  of  the  discovery  of  the 
Primordial  fauna  and  the  strata  containing  it,  in  the  general  clas- 
siflcation and  nomenclature  of  the  world.  I  have  expected  it,  and 
was  sure  that  the  erroneous  opinions  expressed  during  the  last 
forty-five  years,  were  to  be  defended  and  clung  to  with  the  greatest 
obstinacy ;  and  that  after  obtaining  with  more  than  ordinary  diffi- 
culty the  acknowledgment  of  the  existence  and  true  geological  po- 
Bition  of  the  Primordial  fauna,  every  effort  would  be  made  to 
reduce  that  ungracefully  granted  concession  to  its  smallest  com- 
pass ixx  the  typical  Taconic  area. 

Mr.  Walcott  says :  "Professor  Marcou  .  .  .  has  written  at 
length  upon  the  Taconic  system,  but  I  have  been  unable  to  discover 
that  he  has  made  any  field  observations  in  the  typical  Taconic 
area"  X"The  Taconic  system  of  Emmons  and  the  use  of  the  name 
Taconic  in  geologic  nomenclature ;"  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxxv, 
p.  229, March,  1888).  I  have  never  claimed,  that  I  made  original 
researches  in  the  Taconic  range,  nor  intimated  in  any  way  that  I 
was  ever  there.  In  January,  1861,  Dr.  P2mmons  wrote  me,  that  in 
the  spring  or  summer,  he.  Colonel  Jewett,  and  myself,  would  go 

>The  adversaries  of  Dr.  Emmons' Taconic  system  now  admit  two-thirds  of  it;  but 
there  still  remain  nnaccepted  the  "Blacic  slutes,"  the  Stockbridge  marble  and  the  Sparry 
limestone,  besides  the  limestone  and  slates  of  Pointe  L^vis,  Phlilipsbnrgh,  FortCassin, 
Shoreham,  and  Wappinger  Valley.  It  is  to  be  expected  that  the  strongest  opposition 
will  be  made  to  placing  the  Upper  Taconic,  composed  of  the  L^vis  and  Philiipsburgh 
groupi  and  the  Swanton  and  Citadclle  Hill  of  Quebec  group  in  the  Primordial  fauna 
as  the  supra-primordial  or  zone  of  the  Dikelocephalus  ana  Iiathyuru$,  and  that  Messrs. 
Hall,  Dana  and  their  followers  will  contest  that  pas  t  of  the  Taconio  with  the  tenacity 
of  despair.  * 


CLASBtFICATION  AND  NOMRNCLATURB. 


19 


together  over  liis  original  ground  and  study  the  Taconio  area. 
But  Emmons  never  returned  ;  and  I  was  l)egged  repeatedly  and 
most  earnestly  by  Bariande,  Rillinga  and  Jewett  to  go  at  once  to 
Georgia  and  Pointe  L/ivia,  aa  the  two  most  important  localities,  on 
account  of  the  discoveries  of  fossils  belonging  to  tlio  Primordial 
fauna.  Yielding  to  this  most  urgent  cull  I  did  go  there  in  1861, 
'62,  '63,  '73  and  '74  ;  and  it  took  all  the  time  I  was  able  to  spare  to 
work  out  the  geology  of  northwestern  Vermont  and  the  vicinity  of 
Quebec. 

I  trusted  to  Dr.  Emmons'  observations  and  still  continue  to  do 
so ;  while,  on  the  contrary,  I  distrust  all  the  numerous  and  continu- 
ally changing  opinions  of  his  adversaries,  for  to  my  knowledge  Dr. 
Emmons  is  the  only  observer  with  good  stratigraphicul,  palaeon- 
tological  and  lithological  principles  who  has  ever  studied  tliat  re- 
gion. For  any  impartial  person,  it  is  obvious  tliat  the  errors  of 
Mather,  Hall,  Hitchcock,  Dana,  Logan,  Hunt,  etc.,  who  have  per- 
sistently denied  the  existence  of  the  Taconic  system  and  the  Pri- 
mordial fauna,  cannot  be  placed  in  opposition  to  the  good  and 
correct  observations  and  conclusions  of  Dr.  Emmons. 

In  order  to  impress  favorably  his  readers,  Mr.  Walcott  refers  to 
his  "principles,"  and  says:  "I  have  studied  in  the  field  most  of 
the  sections  mentioned  in  this  article,  and  know  from  which  hori- 
zons the  collections  were  obtained,  and  therefore  with  considerable 
confidence  express  conclusions  that  differ  from  those  reached  by 
geologists  and  palseontologists,  who  have  arrived  at  their  results 
through  the  accounts  of  the  observations  and  collections  of  others 
or  from  stratigraphic  or  paleeontologic  data  considered  without 
giving  due  weight  to  the  importance  of  combining  tliem."  And 
"hammer  in  hand  I  examined  it  (Prospect  Peak,  Nevada),  and 
collected  fossils  at  all  places  where  they  could  be  found  "  (see 
Second  Contrihviion  to  the  studies  on  the  Cambrian  faunas,  etc.', 
pp.  12  and  33,  Washington,  1886).  He  insists  on  "priority  of 
definition"  and  "accuracy  of  original  observations"  and  also 
says :  "In  the  evolution  of  stratigraphic  and  historic  geology,  strat- 
igraphic geology  preceded  paleeontologic  stratigraphy  ;"  "  different 
sections  of  strata  in  the  same  province  may  be  compared  with  one 
another  when  the  continuity  is  broken  ;"  "that  tlie  unit  of  geologic 
nomenclature  is  the  formation  as  lithologically  determined  ;"  "that 
the  means  of  correlation  of  the  formations  of  one  province  with 
those  of  another  is  by  order  of  succession,  as  stratigraphically  de 


w 


to 


AMKRICAN  OBOLOOIOAL 


terinlncd,  of  the  contained  orgnnic  remains  of  the  respective  for 
matioiiH."  And  nnally,lio  concliKics/Svitli  tlie  preceding  stutenicnts 
in  mind,  I  tal{o  up  tlie  (piestion  of  tlie  Taconic  system  in  geology, 
as  one  tliut  can  oniy  l)c  intclligontly  understood  and  decided  l)y 
tlie  application  of  the  principles  contained  in  tliem  "  ("Tlie  Taconic 
system  of  Emmons,  etc.,"  in  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxxv,  pp.  229, 
230,  March,  1888). 

From  these  quotations  it  appears  tiuit  Mr.  Walcott  supposes 
Emmons,  Barrande  and  Marcou  were  lacking  in  practical  knowl- 
edge of  stratigraphy,  pahuontology,  lithology  and  of  ^'  How  to 
observe,"  in  the  Held.  Evidently  the  doctrine  dea  colonies  is  not 
considered  witli  favor  by  Mr.  Walcott,  and  the  dozen  of  Tren- 
ton-Clu\zy-Calciferous  species  found  by  the  late  Rev.  Wing,  in 
the  belt  of  limestone  and  marble  "  that  outcrops  both  on  the  cast- 
ern  and  western  side  of  the  Taconic  range,"  is  a  "hitch,"  which  he 
cannot  accept  on  account  of  his  "principles."  Besides  he  does  not 
approve  the  "Precursory  centre  of  creation,"  showing  that  fore- 
runners  and  prophetic  types  of  the  second  fauna  have  made  their 
appearance  in  America  sooner  than  in  Europe ;  and  that  we  have 
here  a  second  example  of  tlic  doctrine  dea  colonies,  only  instead  of 
being  a  part  of  the  third  fauna  inclosed  in  tlie  strata  belonging  to 
the  second  fauna  as  in  Bohemia,  we  have  a  part  of  the  second 
fauna  inclosed  in  tlie  strata  of  the  Primordial  fauna  and  conse- 
quently in  the  Taconic  system. 

It  is  certainly  a  satl  spectacle  to  see  how  every  opportunity  to 
diminish  the  merit  and  the  good  original  works  of  Dr.  Emmons,  is 
eagerly  seized  upon.  But  I  will  only  repeat  what  I  have  said  be- 
fore :  "the  truth  is  always  victorious,  in  spite  of  opposition  and 
obscurity,  and  therefore  the  future  of  the  Taconic  system  is  fully 
assured"  ("The  Taconic  system  and  its  position  in  stratigraphlc 
geology:"  Proceed.  Amer.  Acad,  Arts  and  Sci.,  vol.  xii,  p.  175, 
Cambridge,  1885). 

1887-88. —  Mr.  Marcou  demonstrates  in  two  papers  read  before 
the  Boston  Society  of  Natural  History  in  March  and  May,  the  pri- 
ority of  the  name  Taconic  over  Cambrian,  and  continues  to  sustain 
the  wliole  Taconic  system,  the  "Black  slates"  of  Emmons  included. 
He  also  demonstrates  the  priority  of  Champlain  over  the  Ordoviclan 
system  offered  lately  by  Professor  Lapworth  to  deaignate  the 
rocks  containing  the  second  fauna  of  Barrande. 

1887.     The  last  issue  of  Mr.  J.  D.  Dana's  Taconic  paper,  "  The 


7." 

i 


CLAftSiriOATION    AND   NOMRNCLATURC. 


tl 


views  of  ProfcHHor  Emmons  on  the  Tuconic  system"  (Amer.  Jo^^irn. 
Sci.,  8(1  scries,  vol.  xxxiii,  Miiy,  1887,  pp.  412-419),  is  a  cmiosity 
in  more  tlinn  one  sense,  being  n  rutlier  instructive  illiiHtriition  uf 
tlie  inside  of  tlie  question,  from  its  advorsiirios. 

After  Rnrrunde  nnd  Marcou's  paper  of  18G0,  Messrs.  Hall  and 
Logan  each  tried  to  throw  the  blame  on  the  other,  one  saying  that 
it  was  ^Hhe  most  able  stratigrapiiical  geologist  of  the  American 
continent !"  who  deceived  him  ;  the  other,  that  it  was  the  greatest 
American  palreontologist  "whose  opinion  is  law  in  American  geol- 
ogy !"  tluU  misled  him.  However,  tliey  soon  rallied  and,  reassured 
by  Dr.  Emmons'  death  in  18fi3,  and  Mr.  Marcou's  tem|*orarv  ab- 
sence in  Europe,  18G4-71,  they  put  their  heads  together  once  more, 
and  in  18G5,  using  as  usual  Mr.  T.  Storry  Hunt  as  their  amanuen- 
sis or  secretary,  after  new  investigations  and  explorations  made 
together  of  the  Taconic  area  in  New  York,  MassachuHctts  and 
Vermont,  they  published  in  the  Amer.  Journ.  ScL,  vol.  xxxix,  p. 
96,  18G5,  a  restatement  of  their  old  opinions  against  the  Tuconic 
system. 

We  have  now  another  rub  between  Messrs.  Dana  and  Sterry 
Hunt  reproaching  each  other  for  having  persecuted  Emmons  and 
opposed  the  Taconic  system.  "Dr.  Hunt's  opinions  were  not  al- 
ways couched  in  courteous  language,"  says  Mr.  Dana,  which  is  too 
true ;  but  it  was  simply  an  imitation  of  the  language  constantly 
used  in  all  his  controversies  by  Mr.  Dana  himself. 

After  marching  hand  in  liand  during  more  than  forty  years,  using 
freely  all  their  periodicals  (Amer.  Journ.  Sci..,  and  Canadian  Nat.), 
and  their  annual  publications  (Amer.  Association  Adv.  of  Science 
and  Geol.  Reports  of  Canada),  to  persecute  and  wage  persistent 
war  against  both  Emmons  and  Marcou,  these  two  old  associates, 
most  intimate  friends  and  comrades,  have  now  come  to  exchange 
disagreeable  remarks  and  violent  attacks,  a  result  long  expected 
by  those  who  know  the  two  wortliies. 

Mr.  Dana  tries  to  explain  why  he  refused  to  publish  Emmons' 
remarks  upon  Logan's  Report,  when  he  announced  his  Huronian 
system,  because  Dr.  Emmons  claimed  that  the  Huronian  was  only 
a  part  of  the  Taconic.  "The  refusal,"  he  says,  "was  on  the 
ground  that  the  'remarks'  contained  no  facts  sustaining  the  opin- 
ion, and  that  opinions  on  such  a  point  without  facts  were  of  no 
value  to  the  science.  The  Huronian  region  and  the  Taconic  were 
remote  from  one  another,  and  Logan's  discoveries  of  fossils  in 


22 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


I   i: 


Canada  seemed   to  be   too  decisive   to  be  so  set  aside"  (Amer. 
Journ.  Sci.^  vol.  xxxiii,  p.  418,  1887). 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  more  lamentably  lame  excuses.  Mr. 
Dana  has  filled  up  his  journal,  since  lie  is  the  geological  editor, 
witli  papers  of  controversial  nature  without  a  single  fact  or  obser- 
vation made  in  the  field  or  in  museums,  and  such  papers  entirely 
valueless  to  science  may  be  counted  by  the  dozen  and  even  by  the 
hundred.  In  fact  anything  opposing  Dr.  Emmons  or  Mr.  Marcou 
'las  always  been  accepted  eagerly  by  him,  and  often  published  with 
commentaries  of  his  own,  not  "always  couched  in  courteous  lan- 
guage." 

As  to  "Logan's  discoveries  of  fossils"  in  the  Huronian,  it  is  one 
of  Mr.  Dana's  customary  bold  assertions,  made  against  the  print- 
ed opinion  of  the  originator ;  for  Logan  takes  special  care  in  all 
his  papers  on  the  subject,  from  1854  to  1863,  to  insist  constantly 
that  he  did  not  find  fossils.  But  this  is  not  all ;  never  has  the  char' 
acter  of  a  man  shown  itself  so  plainly  and  under  such  an  unenvia- 
ble light,  as  has  Mr.  Dana's  in  this  article.  He  declares  that  he 
began  tc  work  on  the  Taconic  question  in  1843 !  "  learning  but 
publishing  nothing."  His  "investigations  in  Berkshire  were  com- 
menced in  July  of  1871,  in  order  to  get  at  the  truth,  without  any 
feeling  of  opposition  to  Professor  Emmons." 

Forty-four  years  of  investigations,  observations,  conclusions, 
controversies,  and  not  a  single  fact  worth  recording,  or  which  can 
be  quoted  as  good  in  stratigraphy,  or  in  palaeontology,  are  certainly 
anything  but  creditable.  Such  negative  results  speak  for  them- 
selves. For  a  man  who,  as  a  writer  of  mamials,  and  as  an  extra- 
ordinary, severe,  unjust  and  very  partial  critic  against  all  those 
who  have  worked  on  American  geology,  without  his  pcimission 
and  special  approbation,  to  be  reduced  to  admit  that  "Prof.  Em- 
mons was  right  in  his  Berkshire  stratigraphical  observations,"  and 
not  because  he  found  it  out  himself,  but  simply  because  a  geolo- 
gist of  the  United  States  geological  survey,  in  a  single  visit  in 
Berkshire  during  1886,  h«s  confirmed  Dr.  Emmons'  observations, 
is  a  fact  which  does  not  require  comm*^ntaries.  It  classifies  Mr. 
Dana  as  a  practical  geologist  and  an  original  observer  in  his  right 
place ;  showing  the  value  of  his  persistent  and  blind  resistance 
against  progress,  his  opposition  a  outrance,  and  his  parti  pris  to 
ignore  a  system  of  25,000  feet  of  thickness,  more  important  than 
the  Cambrian  (Champlain),  Silurian  and  Devonian  put  together. 


!^ 


ifuiimHwmi 


(Amer. 


CLASSIFICATION   AND    NOMENCLATURE.  28 

Messrs.  Dana  and  Hall  liave  not  even  excuses  of  distances  to  travel 
over,  or  want  of  facilities  and  opportunities  to  correct  their  colos- 
sal error ;  for  both  have  passed  their  lives  in  full  view  and  at  the 
very  door  of  the  Taconic  region,  and  both  have  maint;iined  their 
systematic  opposition  in  face  of  all  the  facts  presented  by  Dr.  Em- 
mons, Barrande  and  Marcou. 

It  is  comforting  to  see  that  Mr.  Dana  has  never  had  any  "feel- 
ing of  opposition  to  Prof.  Jimmons,"  for  no  one  would  ever  suppose 
that  he  was  friendly  or  even  strictly  just  to  Emmons  and  the  Ta- 
conic system.  His  efforts  during  forty-four  years  have  been  di- 
rected to  "keeping  life  in  wrong  conclusions,"  and  in  the  opposite 
direction  of  "truth."  And  at  this  late  hour,  to  try  to  exculpate 
himself,  Mather,  Professors  Rogers,  Hitchcock,  Logan  and  Mr. 
James  H.ill,  throwing  the  blame  upon  an  irresponsible  chemist, 
Mr.  T.  Sterry  Hunt,  who  has  acted  during  twenty-four  and  even 
more  years  as  amanuensis  of  Logan,  Hall  and  Mr.  Dana  himself, 
is  not  generous. 

In  the  Taconic  controversy,  "discourteous  words"  and  "dis- 
courteous acts"  have  been  constantly  and  systematically  used  by 
the  adversaries  of  Emmons  and  Marcou  ;  and  the  criticisms  made, 
not  only  did  not  "  give  life  and  progress  to  science"  as  claimed 
by  Mr.  Dana,  but  were  of  such  a  nature,  that  both  Emmons  and 
Marcou  were  so  pushed  aside  and  almost  silenced,  that  although 
neither  has  ever  despaired,  or  has  ever  yielded  one  single  iota  of 
his  observations,  eoch  has  been  obliged  to  stay  outside  of  official 
and  general  relations  with  all  American  associations,  commit- 
tees, and  special  contrivances  of  the  persecutors  and  recognized 
enemies  of  "truth."  And  now  all  the  efforts  of  the  united  oppo- 
nents against  the  progress  of  American  geology,  during  more  than 
forty  years,  to  blot  out  their  unscrupulous  and  unintelligent  acts, 
will  not  succeed.  Their  records  will  stand,  and  be  a  perpetual  sub- 
ject of  regret  and  a  black  spot  in  the  history  of  American  geology. 

IV.  Cambrian  or  Champlain  System. 
The  priority  of  Professor  Sedgwick's  researches  and  classifica- 
tions of  the  rocks  containing  the  second  fauna  between  1830  and 
1835,  is  unquestionable,  and  the  name  of  Cambrian  is  excellent, 
notwithstanding  its  original  meaning  {Cimbri,  robbers,  and  Cam- 
bna,  country  of  the  robbers),  on  condition  of  limiting  its  meaning 
to  only  one  system  and  one  fauna. 


'■'f-««i»»SBiw»"Wr''  ■ 


24 


AMERICAN  GEOLOGICAL 


:         !! 


i       i   ill 


!      •■ 


g«.  in  ,842,  .be  name  fflZto  1!"°°"'"  '^■''™' '"  "'"<"■  he 

P'«'n.  .„„  consequently  they  Ce  ^TT"'  ''"'  """  »»  Cteo,- 
The  confusion  created  i„  LI        ^  dropped. 

tae  second  fauna  requiref  „  coill"  "^ '"''-'"■'""l  fossils  with 
'".on  of  the  woflt.  "P'^'*  fecasting  and  a  careful  re^ 

In  A       .  ^'    ^"-™"»'  SrsTEM. 

^--rS  0:,Srs:Cr'C-  -' -^  van..™  and 

N- Vork,  "consid'.sthe  rock    ^ft?  ;■"  '""  "'  "^  «""«  «f 
■°g  o  the  Oid  Bed  sandstone  a'd  tl,e  r'  k  ""'  <""*'  ^  "elong- 
be  aiove  the  Silmtan  system  ITu,  ^'"•'~""'«»"s  groups  and  to 
conclusion  rests,  in  parln;,^  *:*'»•    ^he  evidence  for  h U 
'ely  on  these  characters   therein   ^        '""'""'•  "n"  f  we  can 
«;e  «ge  and  position  of    „     "ck's!;'';":  '■«'«  0-stion  regard  ^ 
•Albany,  1838).    He  makes  the  Old  t^"""  ^'"'-  ^^'•'-  P-  291° 
Gypseous  marl  and  slates'- or  Onold»        sandstone  end  with  the 
fZT  '"\0no,^9a  lines  Je  .nZuLTr""'  «™"P  ■•  ""d  he 
'/emu,  or  Mountain  limestone;  '  "'•""'  """"e  »«  Carbon. 

"e  see  that,  from  tl.o  i,„  •     . 

g^and  geologist.  M^rmrS^-^"^'''''''''  "^  •«"-'»■<- 

he  has  constantly  -isnnderstood  in   h"?;  id  "•'„'""  ""'  ""'■'  "'»'. 

„?"  ™'"«  ■«  a  guide  in  geology     a!  !     ''''""''™"'>".  comparison 

always  arrived  at  erroneous  cras;i,ict-    """"""'^"ee  he  has  almost 

only  a  second-rate  Pal«o„to  IgUt  tnti,""'  """''•■'=■'""«.  Being 

■••'«Te„dao„„p„„,...,.    „      *    '  """"ngm  »8logieal  and  geo! 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


25 


laphj, 
icli  be 
North 
Jd  in- 

1847, 
and 
879; 
Iiam- 

^yof 

with 

re- 


md 
39. 
eo- 
of 

to 

lis 
m 


logical  knowledge,  his  judgment  is  not  authoritative,  and  cannot 
be  compared  with  tlie  opinions  and  views  of  Barrande,  Agassiz, 
d'Orbigny,  Deshayes,  Ed.  Forbes,  Davidson,  de  Konincic,  McCoy, 
Salter,  Angelin,  Linnarson,  etc.,  etc.  "Regarding  the  age  and 
position  of  our  rocI<s,"  Mr.  James  Hall  has  gone  from  tlie  first 
hopelessly  astray  in  dealing  witi  all  the  American  geological 
questions. 

To  Edouard  de  Verneuil  is  due  tlie  credit  of  having  given  tlie 
true  parallelism  or  homotaxis  of  tiie  palaeozoic  rocks  of  North 
America  with  those  of  Europe,  so  far  as  the  second  fauna  (Cam- 
brian), the  third  fauna  (Silurian),  the  Devonian  and  Carboniferous 
are  concerned  ;  for  he  did  not  know  in  1846,  during  his  visit  to 
North  America,  the  Primordial  fauna  of  Barrande  published  for 
the  first  time  during  his  journey  in  the  New  World. 

In  his  able  paper,  entitled  'Note  sur  le  parallelisnie  des  roches  des 
depots  paleozoiqiies  de  I'Amerique  septentrionale  avec  ceux  de  VEu- 
rope.,  etc.  {Bulletin  Soc.  Geol.  France,  2*  serie,  tome  iv,  p.  646, 
avril  1847,  Paris),  de  Verneuil  limits  the  "Etage  superieur  du  sys- 
teme  Silurien,"  which  is  the  true  Silurian  system,  from  the  Grey 
sandstone  and  Oneida  conglomerate,  to  the  Upper  Pentamerus 
limestone  of  the  Lower  Helderberg  in  the  State  of  New  York. 

The  extension  of  the  Silurian  system  to  other  parts  of  North 
America  has  always  been  easily  recognized. 

The  name  Silurian  is  good,  and  has  been  accepted  with  little  op- 
position, except  when  its  author  Murchison  and  his  friends  and 
followers  carried  it  too  far,  by  extending  its  meaning  and  covering 
strata  of  other  systems. 

VI.     Devonian  System. 

Established  by  Sedgwick  and  Murchison,  in  1839,  with  the  help 
of  Lonsdale's  study  of  the  Devonshire  fossils,  which  proved  an 
important  and  complete  fauna  of  a  character  intermediate  between 
those  of  the  Silurian  and  Carboniferous,  the  Devonian  system  was 
not  clearly  made  out  in  America,  until  de  Verneuil's  journey  in 
1846.  Having  studied  with  d'Archiac  the  fossils  of  the  Rhenish 
Provinces,  in  1842,  and  afterward  the  Devonian  of  Russia,  1842- 
1844,  de  Verneuil  was  admirably  prepared  to  synchronize  the 
American  strata  with  those  of  Europe. 

The  divisions  of  the  upper  part  of  the  New  York  series,  called 
Upper  Helderberg  andEriegroups,  worked  out  mainly  by  Vanuxem 
and  Conrad  —  J.  Hall  having  proposed  only  the  names  of  Marcel- 


26 


AMERICAN  OEOLOOIOAL 


i{:    i 


i     1 


lus  and  Genesee  slates,  Portage  and  Chemung  group — after  being 
referred  by  Mr.  J.  Hall  first  as  Carboniferous  or  Mountain  lime- 
stone, were  synchronized  by  him  in  1840  and  1843  with  the  Silu- 
rian system  and  the  equivalent  of  the  Ludlow  rocks  and  the  upper 
part  of  the  Wenlock  limestone  of  Wales. 

Conrad  regarded  the  Devonian  of  New  York  as  composed  only 
of  the  Old  Red  sandstone  (Catskill  group)  and  the  Chemung  and 
Portage  groups.  Mr.  Hall  accepted  that  view,  and  even  so  ass  to 
admit  "perhaps  a  part  of  the  Hamilton  group ;"  "if  the  Devonian 
is  to  be  regarded  as  a  distinct  system,"  a  fact  which  he  was  not 
disposed  to  accept,  saying :  "In  New  York,  however,  no  subdivis- 
ions can  be  made  which  are  entitled  to  the  name  of  systems"  (see 
Geology  of  Nev  York^  Part  iv,  p.  516,  Albany,  1843),  a  rather 
sweeping  opinion,  which  received  shortly  after,  from  de  Verneuil, 
such  a  rebuke  as  to  put  it  forever  out  of  the  way. 

De  Verneuil  saw  at  once  that  the  Devonian  as  considered  by 
Conrad  was  too  limited,  and  he  successively  placed  in  it  the  Tully 
limestone,  the  Hamilton  group,  the  Marcellus  shales,  Corniferous 
limestone,  Onondaga  limestone  and  Schoharie  grit.  Nay,  more, 
with  some  hesitation,  he  regarded  the  Oriskany  sandstone  as  form- 
ing the  inferior  limit  of  the  New  York  Devonian. 

As  in  all  great  systems,  the  divisions  at  the  limits  are  more  or 
less  subject  to  discussions  in  regard  to  their  places  in  one  or  the 
other  system. 

Farther  west  and  south,  the  Devonian  is  less  developed,  and 
sometimes  it  is  reduced  to  very  small  proportions  both  as  to 
thickness  and  geographical  extent.  However,  it  is  always  easily 
recognized. 

VII.  Carboniferous  System. 

In  general  the  Carboniferous  series  are  more  homogenous  in 
America  than  in  Europe  with  the  exception  of  Russia ;  and  their 
great  thick luss  in  some  parts  of  America,  and  vast  geographical 
extension,  make  them  a  very  important  geological  horizon,  from 
Newfoundland  and  Cape  Breton  Island  to  northern  California,  and 
from  Michigan  to  Texas.  It  is  a  geological  landmark  of  the  first 
order. 

Fresh-water  or  brackish- water  deposits  of  the  same  age  as  ma- 
rine deposits  exist  in  America  as  well  as  in  Europe,  only  they 
are  much  less  extensive,  being  limited  mainly  to  the  eastern  part 
of  the  New  World,  the  AUeghanies,  New  Brunswick  and  Nova 
Scotia. 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


27 


emg 


Difficulties  have  arisen  in  regard  to  limits,  as  was  to  be  expect- 
ed with  such  a  great  system.  Tlie  synchronism  and  parallelism 
witii  European  strata  have  more  especially  been  the  subjects  of  dis- 
cussions and  difference  of  opinions.  The  name  Mountain  limestone 
has  been  much  controverted,  because  in  the  first  difficult  and  nec- 
essarily hasty  recf  luolssance  made  in  the  far  west,  it  was  u^jed 
foi-  some  outcrop  of  Carboniferous  strata,  some  of  winch  belong, 
perhaps,  to  the  upper  part  of  the  Carboniferous  system  ;  although 
this  is  far  from  proved,  even  now. 

An  example  will  show  the  cliaracter  of  the  controversy.  I 
found,  in  1853,  that  the  Carboniferous  limestone  lying  on  tlie  gran- 
ite and  crystalline  rocks  of  Tigeras,  or  San  Antonio  Pass,  east  of 
Albuquerqtie,  New  Mexico,  and  which  also  forms  all  the  top  of 
the  Sandia  range  of  mountains  overlooking  the  Rio  Grande  valley 
from  San  Bernardillo  to  El  Paso  del  Norte,  are  truly  contempo- 
raneous or  liomotaxial  strata  of  the  Mountain  limestone  of  Eng- 
land, and  I  made  out  the  synchronism  by  fossils,  as  well  as  strati- 
graphically  and  lithologically.  Afterwards  I  found  Bmchiopodce 
at  Pecos  Village,  in  the  Sierra  Madreor  de  Zuni  and  in  the  west- 
ern part  of  New  Mexico,  now  Arizona,  near  the  great  extinct  vol- 
canoes of  the  San  Francisco  Mountains,  south  of  the  Great  Canon 
of  the  Colorado,  under  material  difficulties  of  a  nature  entirely'  un- 
controllable, which  prevented  me  from  making  out  the  stratigraphy 
as  complete  as  I  did  in  the  Sierra  de  Sandia  ;  and  naturally  enough, 
I  concluded  that  this  Carboniferous  limestone,  containing  the  most 
important  and  common  Brachiopodce,  belonged  also  to  the  Moun- 
tain limestone.  But  it  seems  that  some  parts  of  the  Carboniferous 
limestone  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  region  may  perhaps  belong  to 
the  Upper  instead  of  the  Lower  Carboniferous,  a  fact  of  little  con- 
sequence, which  does  not  affect  a  geological  map  on  a  small  scale. 
Besides  more  careful  investigations  ought  to  be  made  there  before 
accepting  conclusions  arrived  at  and  propounded  by  the  different 
surveying  parties  which,  many  years  after  me,  have  gone  over  the 
western  part  of  the  continent.  For  there  is  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  the  Mountain  limestone  fauna  of  Derbyshire  and  Belgium  ex- 
ists all  over  the  Coal  Measures  of  the  West ;  the  strata  carry- 
ing the  Brachiopodce  all  through  the  Carboniferous.  It  must  be 
also  kept  in  mind,  as  Mr.  F.  Springer  says,  that  "  the  attempt  to 
identify  the  Brachiopods  of  New  Mexico  with  specimens  from  the 
Lower  and  Upper  Carboniferous  rocks  of  the  Mississippi  valley, 
has  not  been  in  all  respects  followed  by  satisfactory  results"  {Amer. 


28 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


Journ.  Sci.y  3d  series,  vol.  xxvii,  p.  97,  1884).  At  all  events, 
a  geologist  of  considerable  practice  in  the  Carboniferons  rocks  of 
the  Mississippi  region,  Mr.  Springer,  has  proved  that  I  was  right 
in  referring  the  Carboniferons  limestone  of  the  Sierra  de  Sandia 
to  the  Mountain  limestone  of  Enrope,  being  the  equivalent  of  the 
Snb-Carboniferous  of  Burlington,  Iowa,  and  other  places  in  the 
West  ("On  the  occurrence  of  the  Lower  Burlington  limestone  in 
New  Mexico ;"  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxvii,  1884). 

In  the  basins  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers  the  Carbonifer- 
ous series  are  divided  into  two  systems,  the  Lower  or  Sub-Carbonif- 
erous and  the  Upper  or  Coal  Measures ;  each  being  subdivided,  into 
divisions  of  the  third  and  fourth  orders,  called  Kinderhook,  Bur- 
lington limestone,  Keokuk,  St.  Louis  and  Chester  for  the  Lower 
Carboniferous ;  and  Lower,  Middle  and  Upper  Coal  Measures  for 
the  Upper  Carboniferous. 

The  names  and  divisions  vary  according  to  the  states  in  these 
basins.  In  the  state  of  Ohio,  the  Sub-Carboniferous  is  divided 
into  the  Erie  shale,  the  Waverly  sandstone  and  the  Maxville  lime- 
stone. As  to  the  Upper  Carboniferous,  called  also  simply  Carbon- 
iferous, it  is  divided  into  Carboniferous  Conglomerate,  Lower  Coal 
Measures  and  Upper  Coal  Measures.  Nor  is  this  classification 
of  the  state  of  Ohio  absolute,  definitive  and  ne  varietur;  for  in 
the  first  volume  of  the  survey  we  have  another  nomenclature.  The 
Erie  shale  being  placed  in  the  Devonian,  then  comes  the  Waverly 
group,  subdivided  into  Cleveland  shale,  Bedford  shale,  Berea  grit 
iand  Cuyahoga  shale ;  then  above  comes  a  lower  Carboniferous  or 
Chester  limestone.  As  to  the  Upper  Cai'boniferous,  it  seems  to  be 
divided  into  four  divisions  of  the  third  order;  first  the  Conglome- 
rate, then  Lower  Coal  Measures,  after  Barren  Measures,  and  finally 
the  Upper  Coal  Measures. 

In  Indiana  we  have  a  Knobstone  group  below  the  Keokuk 
group,  which  seems  to  replace  the  Kinderhook  beds  and  the  Bur- 
lington limestone  of  the  Mississippi  basin. 

In  Utah  and  Nevada  the  divisions  of  the  Carboniferous  are  the 
Wahsatch  limestone  or  Sub-Carboniferous,  then  Weber  quartz'te 
and  the  Upper  Coal  Measures. 

In  California  the  Carboniferous  limestone  seems  to  present  anom- 
alies as  well  stratigraphic  as  palseontologic,  being  formed  of  large 
lenticular  masses  of  limestone  inclosed  in  slates,  which  promise  to 
exercise  the  imagination  of  the  western  geologists  accustomed  to 
the  easy  Carboniferous  classification  of  the  Mississippi  valley. 


iimmnj,uiij!ji 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


29 


It 

la 
|e 
le 


Much  confusion  exists,  and  it  will  require  clear-minded  observers 
to  classify  and  put  in  good  order  the  American  Carboniferous. 
The  comparison  with  European  Carboniferous,  on  a  basis  of  prac- 
tical knowledge,  in  the  field  of  the  two  great  series  in  both  conti- 
nents, is  also  much  needed. 

VIII.  Dtassic  System. 

The  Dyas  was  discovered,  in  1853,  by  Jules  Marcou,  during  his 
exploration  with  the  expedition  of  Lieutenant  A.  W.  Whipple  by 
the  thirty-fifth  parallel,  for  the  Pacific  railroad,  west  of  the  pueblo 
of  Zuni,  between  the  Rio  Colorado  Chiqulto  and  the  San  Francisco 
extinct  volcano  (Arizona) ;  and  also  on  Topofki  creek  between 
Mount  Delaware  and  Old  Fort  Arbuckle  (Indian  Territory). 

It  occupies  an  important  position  among  the  different  strati- 
graphic  systems  of  the  United  States  and  is  the  equal  of  the  Cam- 
brian (Champlain),  Silurian  or  Devonian.  It  is  divided  in  two 
parts,  having  many  similarities  and  relations  with  the  European 
Dyas. 

The  lower  part  has  two  types  :  one  marine  formation  which  must 
be  taken  as  the  normal  type,  and  a  fresh-water  formation  which  is 
homotaxial  or  local  contemporaneous. 

The  marine  Lower  Dyas  exists  at  Nebraska  city  and  vicinity, 
penetrating  into  Iowa,  also  in  Kansas  and  even  in  Illinois.  It  was 
discovered  by  Jules  Marcou  in  1863,  at  Nebraska  city,  and  de- 
scribed by  him  and  Professor  H.  B.  Geinitz. 

Messrs.  F.  B.  Meek  and  C.  A.  White  have  done  all  they  could 
to  suppress  the  Dyas  in  Nebraska  and  Iowa,  preparatory  to  al- 
lowing Messrs.  J.  Hall  and  J.  S.  Newberry  to  suppress  it  in  the 
whole  of  North  America.  In  his  Report  on  the  Palaeontology  of 
Eastern  Nebraska  (see  "Final  Report  of  Nebraska"  by  F.  V.  Hay- 
den,  Washington,  1872),  Mr.  Meek  has  contested  every  species 
and  even  every  genus  determined  and  described  with  good  figures 
by  Professor  Geinitz  in  his  Carbonformation  unci  Dyits  in  Nebraska, 
4'°,  Dresden,  1866.  He  likewise  has  tried  with  even  more  force, 
and  all  the  arra}'  of  argument  he  was  able  to  muster,  to  blot  out 
all  the  classification  and  nomenclature  of  J.  Marcou,  published  in 
his  two  papers  :  Une  lieconnoissance  au  Nebraska,  and  Le  Dyas  au 
Nebraska  (see  Bulletin  Soc.  geol.  France,  2"  serie,  tome  xxi,  p. 
132  and  tome  xxiv,  p.  280,  Paris,  1864  and  1867). 

However,  Mr.  Meek  did  not  go  so  tar  as  to  deny  the  exactness  of 
Marcou's  sections,  descriptions  and  dips  of  the  strata,  and  geolog- 


"'**^'^)'dh|k:f;lt 


30 


AMERICAN   OEOLOOICAL 


I  iP^ 


l' 


I 


i  i 


ical  positions  of  the  fossils,  which  he  reluctantly  nccepts,  being 
even  obliged  to  pass  over  details  of  the  section  of  Nebraska  city, 
which  he  was  unable  to  follow  and  make  out. 

Dr.  C.  A.  White  says :  "It  was  with  surprise  and  gi'eat  regret 
that  I  received  a  copy  of  a  work  by  Dr.  H.  B.  Geinitz,  entitled 
Carbonformation  und  Dyas  in  Nebraska,  and  learned  from  it  that 
that  able  paleontologist  had  referred  certain  fossils  described  in 
it,  which  were  collected  by  Prof.  Jules  Marcou  from  the  rocks  of 
eastern  Nebraska,  to  tlie  Dyas ;  and  others  from  other  localities  but 
in  the  same  region,  partly  in  Iowa,  to  the  Kohlenkalk"  {^Geology  of 
Iowa,  vol.  I,  p.  248,  Des  Moines,  1870). 

I  am  neither  surprised  nor  do  I  regret  to  see  that  those  two  pa- 
Iceontologists  have  given  opinions  and  determinations  different  from 
those  arrived  at  by  Geinitz  and  myself.  It  is,  on  the  contrary, 
gratifying  that  Messrs.  Meek  and  White  should  have  contrived  to 
concentrate  on  that  easy  and  clear  question  all  their  knowledge  of 
comparative  geology  and  paleeontology,  and  their  views  on  classi- 
fication. 

The  fresh-water  type,  of  the  Lower  Dyas  has  been  described  by 
Messrs.  Wm.  M.  Fontaine  and  I.  C.  White  {The  Permian  or  Upper 
Carboniferous  Jlo7'a  of  West  Virginia  and  S.  W.  Pennsylvania  Har- 
risburg,  1880  ;  in  Second  Geol.  Survey  Pennsylvania,  Report  of 
Progress  PP),  as  composed  of  the  Upper  Barren  Measures  of  the 
Appalachian  coal  field,  without  marine  fossils,  but  containing  a 
very  characteristic  D^'assic  flora.  Ver}'  likely  the  greater  part  of 
the  division  called  Upper  Coal  Measures  in  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois, 
Iowa,  Kansas  and  Missouri,  belongs  to  the  Lower  Dyas. 

The  upper  part  of  the  American  Dyas  has  been  recognized  on 
the  Big  Blue  river  in  Nebraska  by  Mr.  W.  C.  Knight,  in  the  Kanab 
valley  of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado  in  Arizona,  by  Mr. 
C.  D.  Walcott,  and  in  the  Guadalupe  Mountains  in  New  Mexico  by 
Shumard.  Equivalent  fresh-water  deposits  exist  in  North  Caro- 
lina, where  Dr.  Emmons  has  discovered  at  the  base  of  the  Trias 
a  series  of  conglomerate  and  sandstone,  called  Chatham  series,  be- 
low the  Triassic  coal  of  Dan  river  and  of  the  vicinity  of  Richmond 
(Virginia),  which  evidently  are  remains  of  lacustrine  and  brack- 
ish-water deposits  existing  more  or  less  developed  all  along  the 
eastern  bases  of  the  Appalachian  chains.  In  it.  Dr.  Emmons  has 
found  the  oldest  mammal,  Dromaterium  sylvestre. 

In  Lake  Superior  the  celebrated  conglomerate  and  Melaphyrs 
copper-bearing  rocks  of  Keweenaw  Point  and  Isle  Royale  and  the 


CLASSIFICATION   AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


81 


red  sandstone  of  Montrenl  river,  belong  also  to  the  upper  part  of 
the  American  Dyas,  and  are  homotaxial  and  contemporaneous 
witli  tlie  Kupferachiefer  of  Saxony  in  Germany,  and  of  Perm  in 
Russia. 

The  Dyas  calls  for  systematic  investigations  by  competent  and 
practical  geologists  as  well  in  the  field,  as  in  the  cabinet  and 
museums.  Several  monographs  of  tlie  marine  and  fresli-water 
American  Dyas  will  clear  up  all  the  obscurities  and  hesitations  in 
regard  to  the  age  and  equivalents  of  a  system  of  strata  whicli  is  as 
well  represented  in  America,  as  it  is  in  western  Europe,  Saxony 
and  Russia. 

Messrs.  James  Hall  and  J.  S.  Newberry  have  declared  with  a 
certain  solemnity  and  emphasis  at  the  Berlin  International  Con- 
gress of  Geologists,  that  the  Dyas  does  not  exist  in  America  {The 
Work  of  the  Intern.  Cong.  Oeologiata,  by  Persifor  Frazer,  pp.  29 
and  30,  1886).  Tlie  only  answer  is  that  these  two  palceontologists 
are  most  unfortunate  in  all  their  dealing  with  geological  ques- 
tions. Tlie  Dyassic  strata  are  there  distributed  from  Carolinas  to 
Lake  Superior,  Nebraska,  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  and  to  deny 
their  existence  does  not  suppress  them. 

IX.   Tkiassic  System. 

The  New  Red  sandstone  was  first  discovered  in  North  America, 
by  Ed.  Hitchcock,  and  Edwin  James,*  from  1819  to  1824,  in  the 
Connecticut  valley  and  along  the  Canadian  river  (Amer.  Journ. 
Sci.,  vol.  II,  p.  146,  vol.  IV,  p.  39  ;  and  Major  Long's  Expedition  to 
the  Rocky  Mountains  during  the  years  1819-1820,  vol.  ii,  p.  399) ; 
it  extends  from  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence  and  Lake  Superior  to  the 
Carolinas,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  all  over  the  Rocky  Mountains  re- 
gion, Arizona,  Utah,  Nevada  and  even  in  California,  and  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  and  important  systems  in  American  geology. 

Its  legendary  division  into  three  great  "Etages,"  as  proposed 
by  d'Alberti,  has  not  yet  received  the  proper  consideration  re- 
quired, and  a  thorough  study  of  the  system  in  America  is  now  one 
of  the  great  desiderata.      J.   Marcou  is   the  only  one  who  has 

■  James  committed  the  singular  mistake  of  putting  the  "Red  sandstone"  and  "ar* 
giUaceous  or  grey  sandstone,"  which  he  compares  to  the  "New  Red  sandstone  of 
English  geologists,"  below  the  Carboniferous  system.  It  was  not  until  Marcou's  explo- 
ration by  the  30th  parallel,  in  1853,  that  the  Triassic  system  was  truly  found,  described 
and  placed  in  its  right  place,  in  the  Prairies  of  the  Canadian  river  and  in  tlie  Rocky 
Mountains  i-egion. 


82 


AMERICAN  OEOLOOICAL 


attempted  to  recognize  the  three  divisions  in  tlie  region  of  tiio  Ca- 
nadian river,  from  old  fort  Arbucltle  to  tlie  Tucumcari  and  tlie 
Rio  Pecos,  in  Ins  exploration  of  1853  {Geology  of  North  America^ 
pp.  10-10,  4'°,  Zuricli,  1858).  It  was  done  only  on  stratigraphical 
and  litiiological  gronnds. 

As  in  Europe  and  other  parts  of  the  worM,  generally  the  fossils 
are  rare,  limited  to  a  few  privileged  localities  and  small  area ;  and 
often  of  a  nature  (fossil  wood  and  vertebrata)  which  will  require 
years  of  careful  researches  and  descriptions  before  they  can  be 
used  as  characteristic  and  leading  species. 

The  fauna  of  the  Muschelkalk  has  been  discovered  east  of  Fort 
Hall,  in  the  Blackfoot  basin  and  mountains,  near  John  Gray  lake 
and  Snake  river  in  southeastern  Idaho  and  western  Wyoming,  by 
Dr.  A.  C.  Peale  in  1877.  It  is  represented  by  three  species  of 
ammonites  very  similar  to  the  CemtUes  nodosus  of  the  European 
Muschelkalk,  which  have  been  called  by  Professor  A.  Hyatt,  ge- 
nus Meekoceras,  two  or  three  Arcestes?  with  Pecten  (Avicnlopeden), 
Terebratula,  3fonotis ?  Modiolina? recaWinQ  the  Muschelkalk  fauna 
of  Lorraine  and  Wiirtemberg. 

The  thickness  of  the  American  Muschelkalk  is  3,000  feet  accord- 
ing to  Dr.  Peale  {Jura-Triaa  section  of  southeastern  Idaho  and 
loestern  Wyoming^  in  Bulletin  U.  S.  Oeol.  Siirv,  Territories^  vol.  v, 
number  1,  p.  119,  Washington,  1879). 

Above  the  Muschelkalk  there  is  a  great  division  of  red  strata, 
called  Red  beds,  by  Dr.  Peale,  1,000  feet  thick,  representing  very 
likely  the  Marnes  Irisees  or  Keuper  of  P^urope. 

The  St.  Cassian  and  Hallstadt  fauna  or  Lower  Keuper 
(Kohlenkeuper)  of  the  Alpine  Trias  was  discovered  in  1860  by 
Messrs.  Ilomfray  and  G.  Blake  in  the  Humboldt  mining  region  of 
the  territory  of  Nevada.  Afterward  Mr.  C.  King  extended  the 
discovery  to  the  Pah-Ute  range,  Havallah  range,  and  Desatoya 
Mountains.  In  the  West  Humboldt  range,  according  to  Mr.  King, 
the  Trias  is  composed  of  two  great  divisions  :  the  lower  or  Koipato 
group,  about  5,000  feet  thick,  containing  only  fragments  of  a 
Nautilus;  and  the  Star  Peak  group,  10,000  feet  thick,  containing 
the  St.  Cassian  and  Hallstadt  fauna,  such  as  Ammonites,  Arcestes^ 
Gymnotoceras,  Trachyceras,  Endiscoceras,  Halohia,  Monotis,  Modi- 
omorpha,  Posidonomya,  Avicula,  Terebratula,  Spirifera,  etc.  The 
Koipato  group  seems  to  represent  the  Muschelkalk  of  the  Blackfoot 
(Idaho)  and  the  Star  Peak  group  the  whole  Keuper. 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMKN'CLATL'UE. 


88 


Fiirtlior  onst  in  Utnli,  Wyoininj;,  Coloindo  niul  Arizoim,  tlie Trias 
Bpoms  to  lirtvp  tlin  saino  type  as  on  the  Canmlinii  river,  and  furtlier 
rescarclies  will  establish  the  relations  of  the  iliU'erent  beds  in  that 
vast  refj;ion. 

In  Pliunns  eonnty,  California,  a  spot  of  Alpine  Trias  has  been 
signalized.  Also  some  rather  extensive  areas  at  Houston  Stewart 
Channel  in  Queen  Charlotte  Islands  and  on  Vaneouver  Island,  in 
British  Columbia,  are  covered  by  Alpine  triassic  rocks,  with  the 
fauna  of  the  Tyrol  and  Salz  Kanimergut. 

In  Sonora,  Uemond  de  Corblneau  lias  discovered  a  Triassic  flora 
at  Los  Bronces  on  the  Rio  Yaqui.  Finally,  we  have  the  beautiful 
Triassic  flora  of  North  Carolina  and  Virginia,  so  well  worked  out 
by  Dr.  Emmons,  Ileer,  W.  B.  Rogers  and  Mr.  W.  M.  Fontaine. 
The  last  named  author  thinks  that  it  "is  most  probably  Rhetic  in 
age,  and  certainly  not  older"  {Older  Mesozoic  flora  of  Virginia^ 
Moni)graph8  of  the  U.  S.  Geol.  Surv.  vol.  vi,  p.  128,  Washington, 
1883)  ;  a  rather  narrow  interpretation  of  geograpliical  distribution 
of  the  plants  of  the  American  and  European  Triassic  system  ;  for 
the  whole  Trias  is  there,  well  developed,  with  a  thickness  of  two  or 
three  thousand  feet ;  and  the  fossil  plants  are  distributed  all  over 
that  great  formation,  and  more  especially  in  the  lower  part.  If  the 
upper  part  of  the  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  Trias  is  contempo- 
raneous with  the  Rhetic,  it  will  be  proved  by  the  remains  of  fishes 
or  invertebrata,  and  not  by  the  flora. 

The  flora  seems  to  be  the  most  important  element  of  fossil  re- 
mains existing  in  the  Triassic  system  of  North  America.  Fossil 
wood,  more  especially,  is  quite  common  everywhere,  and  in  some 
places  like  the  Lithodencbon  creek, ^  an  affluent  of  the  Colorado 
Chiquito,  west  of  Zuni,  it  forms  a  petrified  forest. 

Reptiles  have  been  found  in  New  England,  the  Prince  Edward 
Island,  New  Mexico  and  Texas  ;  besides  the  celebrated  numerous 
footprints  of  the  Connecticut  valley. 

The  Triassic  deposits  are  mainly  brackish,  with  a  great  deal  of 
fresh  water,  and  some  entirely  marine.    The  synchronism  of  the 


>"The  gfoloffist  of  Whipple's  expedition,  Mr.  Jiilos  Maicou.  finding  scattered  in 
tlie  valley  of  this  creek,  and  even  in  the  bed  of  it,  miiny  trees  petrKled  and  clmnged 
into  hard  and  beautifully  colored  jasper,  some  of  them  of  consideinble  size  and  length, 
called  the  creek  Lithodendron,  from  Lithos  (stone)  and  dendros  (tree).  Lieutenant 
Whipple  accepted  the  name  and  pnt  it  on  his  maps  and  reports,  December,  1853."  See 
"  Origin  of  tome  geographical  names"  in  the  United  States  Army  and  Navy  Journal, 
April  22  and  29, 1882,  p.  884,  4t0,  New  York. 

S 


N'' 


84 


AMERICAN   UKOKOaiCAL 


V. 


M 


Btnitjv  is  not  easy  to  cstiUdiHli,  tiiid  the  lioiuotaxy  of  tlie  dilferent 
divisioiiH  utid  gi'()ui)s  will  i't'(|uiru  tiiore  lliiin  ordiniiry  pniduiice, 
leiu'iiiii<;  and  careful  BtiidiuH  to  bo  uHtabliHltud  on  a  ^ood  basis ; 
but  we  can  say  now  Ibat  several  most  important  links  exist  already 
between  the  Atnerican  and  European  Trias,  as  well  palieontologi- 
cally  as  lithologieall}'. 

The  Lake  Superior  horizontal  sandstone  of  La  Pointc,  Apostle 
Islands,  Hois  Uriile  river,  etc.,  may  be  pointed  out  as  an  example  of 
extraordinary  confusion,  brought  about  by  authoritative  dictation. 
Until  lHr)0,  every  geologist  who  has  explored  Lake  Superior  from 
Drs.  D.  Houghton,  Charles  T.  Jackson,  J.  G.  Norwood  and  D.  D. 
Owen  '  to  Kd.  da  Verneuil  and  myself  has  referred  those  sand- 
stones to  the  Trias.  But  an  agreement  was  made  then  to  impose 
the  age  of  the  Potsdam  sandstone  (proofs  or  no  proofs,  it  was 
no  matter)  and  to  rule  out  of  American  geologists  any  one  bold 
enough  to  dissent.  The  leader  in  that  disgraceful  piece  of  tlicta- 
tion  was  as  usual  Mr.  James  Hall,  backed  by  Logan,  Dana,  Whit- 
ney, Foster  and  Sterry  Hunt.  One  would  expect  that  such  a 
strong  coalition  would  have  only  one  opinion,  instead  of  which, 
we  have  a  mont  astonisliing  variety  of  views,  every  member  of  the 
coalition  except  J.  Hall  and  Whitney  changing  twice  or  even  three 
times  the  ago  of  this  so-mncli-discussed  formation.  However,  I 
must  say  in  defence  of  the  adversaries  of  the  Trias,  that  they  have 
remained  true  to  their  triassic  opposition,  varying  only  between 
the  lowest  crystalline  rocks  to  the  Champlain  system  included,  a 
range  of  forty  thousand  feet  at  least,  giving  them  a  sutlicient  mar- 
gin to  discuss  and  disagree. 

It  is  almost  superfluous  to  say  that  I  have  never  varied  on  the 
Triassic  age  of  the  Lake  Superior  sandstone,  which  possesses  all 
the  lithological  chai;,ctersof  a  littoral  and  arenaceous  formation  of 
the  Bunter  sandsteiu.     As  to  palaeontology  no  fossil  has  yet  been 


>  From  IS.'JO  to  1840,  D.  I).  Owen,  in  tt\]  his  e'\))lorationB  nnd  reports  on  tlie  Ciiippowa 
Inntl  and  Minnesota  territory,  regarded  ttie  Keel  Siindxtone  marls  and  conglomerates  of 
Lake  Superior  as  contemporary  with  tlie  New  lied  sandxtone  ol'  Great  Britain,  But 
in  IsrjO,  lie  was  notiltcd  that  he  was  to  accept  and  use  the  I'otsdam  sandstone  age,  on 
the  penalty  of  liaving  iiis  final  report  taken  from  him;  and  thus  losing  his  many  years 
of  researclies  in  tlie  upper  Missi8si|)pi  region.  Owen,  having  fresh  in  his  mind  tlie  un- 
ijiiet  and  higli-handed  removal  of  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,  in  184U,  from  the  direction  of 
the  survey  of  the  land  district  in  the  state  of  Michigan,  preferred  to  submit  to  the  dic- 
tation of  tlio  ruling  association  of  authoritative  geologists,  and  chanued  liis  views. 
This  is  the  explanation  of  the  "myBtery"  signalized  in  Geology  of  America  by  J,  Mar- 
cou,  p.  12,  Zurich,  185S,  I  did  not  give  it  then  because  the  time  had  not  come  to  dis- 
close it. 


t;^- V  :^«t<-.-^^  y^i?-^^-; 


mmlsii 


OLASSIFICATIUN    AND   NOMKNCL-VTL'UB. 


85 


found,  oxoopt  sovonil  OrthiM'i'ntH,  omlw»(M»Ml  in  the  moliipliyr  iiiid 
(!oii<i;l(»iiuiniU!  of  till!  Kiipriiiscliii'lV'r  of  roiiito  Kowihmiiiw  ;  io(!k«, 
jicccpti'd  Ity  (>v('i-yl>o<ly  Jis  older  tliiin  tlic  liori/oiital  Iiiiki>  Siipfiior 
suiidstoiiti  of  Lii  Puiiitu,  Uiu  ApustlciMluiidH  iiiid  liuis  Brtilu  river. 


i 


X.    Jurassic  Systkm. 

Tlie  old  Oolitic  sories,  or  more  appropriately  the  Jurassic  sys- 
tem, was  discovered  in  iHiy',]  h\  Jules  Marcou  at  the  northwest 
corner  of  the  llano  Kstucado,  in  the  area  called  Big  and  Little  Tu- 
cumcari,  New  Mexico,  (hiring  his  exploration  with  Lieutenant 
A.  VV.  Whipple  for  the  I'acidc  Railroad  by  the  .'}5th  parallel.  The 
two  fossils  found  are  both  very  characteristic  of  the  Lower  Oolites 
and  Oxfordian  fauna  of  Eiighiud  and  the  Jura  Mountains.  One 
very  common,  and  very  well  preserved,  is  a  large  (Hryphcua  of  the 
dilutata  group,  which  Rlarcou  lias  called  On/pJuea  Tucumcarii.  It 
represents  the  type  so  abuiKhint  in  the  Oxfordian  of  the  whole  of 
Europe,  froJu  near  Portland  (England)  to  the  vicinity  of  Moscow, 
(Russia).  The  other  fossil,  of  which  I  have  collected  one  single 
specimen,  with  a  few  fragments,  at  the  only  section  (Pyramid 
Mount)  which  I  was  able  to  explore  —  on  account  of  the  rapid 
inarch  of  the  expedition  in  the  Indian  territories  inhabited  then  by 
the  Apaches — is  a  large  Ostrea  of  the  Ostrea  Marshii  group,  and 
very  likely  a  true  0.  Marshii  identical  with  the  species  of  the 
Lower  Oolite  of  England,  the  Jura  Mountains  and  Wiirtemberg. 

Farther  west  first  at  Laguna,  and  after  near  Zuni,  I  recognized 
also  the  Jurassic  system,  containing  near  Zuni  a  thin  bed  of  coal 
in  which,  five  years  later,  at  the  Moquis  pueblo.  Dr.  J.  S.  New- 
berry found  a  "florula  Jurassic"  {Colorado  Explor.  Expedition  by 
Lieut.  J.  C.  Ives,  Part  ni,  Geological  Report,  pp.  83  and  121),  4*°, 
Washington,  1861). 

Several  years  after  my  discovery  of  the  Jurassic  system  in  North 
America,  it  was  signalized  in  other  localities  of  the  far  west,  by 
different  observers  and  explorers. 

Mr.  Henry  Newton  says  :  "The  first  determination  of  the  Jura 
in  the  far  west  was  made  by  Professor  Meek  from  fossils  collected 
in  the  Black  Hills  by  Dr.  Hayden  in  1857"  {Geology  of  the  Black 
Hills  of  Dakota,  4'°,  Washington,  1880).  This  intentional  mis- 
take is  a  part  of  the  scheme  of  my  combined  adversaries  to  de- 


36 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


prive  me  of  the  priority  of  the  discovery  of  the  Jura  in  North 
America. 

At  tlie  Tucumcari,  the  Jurassic  lias  been  much  eroded  and  sub- 
mitted to  great  denudation,  and  its  thicliness  is  only  about  two 
hundred  feet.  In  tlie  Uinta  Range  the  thickness  is  250  feet,  with 
a  small  Liassic  fauna.  In  the  Bhicli  Hills,  the  Jura  has  a  thick- 
ness varying  from  two  hundred  to  almost  six  hundred  feet ;  it  con- 
tains a  rather  limited  fauna  of  forty-five  species  of  the  Lower  Oolite 
and  Oxfordian  types. 

In  southern  Idaho  and  Wyoming,  according  to  Dr.  Peale,  the 
Jurassic  has  a  thickness  of  1,500  feet,  with  a  Lower  Oolite  fauna. 

In  Nevada,  West  Humboldt  Range,  Augusta  Mountains,  the  Jura 
is  5,500  feet  thick,  with  a  few  Liassic  fossils.  In  Queen  Charlotte 
islands,  the  Oxfordian  and  Upper  Jurassic  fauna;  are  well  repre- 
sented by  Ammonites  of  the  Macrocephali,  Co'>'onati  and  Planulati 
groups,  with  some  forms  related  to  the  Tithonic  species. 

Some  Upper  Jurassic  strata  of  Colorado  and  Wyoming,  referred 
at  first  by  Dr.  Hayden  and  his  survey  to  the  Cretaceous,  and 
afterward  by  Mr.  O.  C.  Marsh  to  the  Wcalden,  contains  a  quantity 
of  fragments  of  vertebra  belonging  to  reptiles  and  mammalia.  A 
huge  Dinosmirus,  described  by  Marsh  under  the  generic  name  o(  At- 
lantosaunis,  is  used  to  characterize  that  upper  part  of  the  American 
Jurassic;  and  since  1877  Mr.  Marsh  has  used  the  name  "Atlan- 
tosaurus  beds,"  to  designate  the  Upper  Jurassic  of  Colorado  and 
Wyoming.  Already  twenty-five  species  of  mammalia  have  been 
described.  All  belong  to  very  low  .  orms  without  any  distinctive 
marsupial  characters,  but  not  far  from  the  marsupial,  for  at  first 
Mr.  Rlarsh  thought  they  belonged  to  that  order.  Lately  he  has 
created  a  new  order  for  them,  under  the  name  o^  Pantotheria. 

During  the  civil  war  (November,  1863),  when  visiting  some 
friends  in  camp  round  Washington,  I  was  shown  a  fossil  "pine- 
apple" found  on  the  farm  of  Dr.  Jenkins,  one  mile  south  of  the 
Baltimore  and  Washington  railroad,  sixteen  miles  from  Washing- 
ton, Prince  George  County,  Maryland.  I  recognized  at  once  a  well 
preserved  Purbeck's  Cycadece  and  referred  the  red  and  grey  marls, 
in  which  it  was  found  in  company  with  pieces  of  petrified  wood 
and  broken  pieces  of  indeterminable  bones  to  the  Purbeck  forma- 
tion of  England.  The  little  of  what  I  saw  there  reminds  me  of  the 
Purbeck  group  as  I  saw  it  at  Portland  Island  and  Durlstone  Bay 


ill 

m 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


37 


near  "Wej'mouth,  England,  where  so  many  specimens  of  mammalia 
(marsupial),  reptiles,  turtles,  fishes  and  Cycadece.  have  been  found 
in  its  celebrated  "dirt  bed." 

Lately  the  United  States  Geological  Survey  have  called  those 
white,  red,  and  bluish  grey  clays  and  sands  "Potomac  formation." 
It  is  a  fresh-water  deposit  contemporaneous  with  tlie  Purbeck 
strata  of  Swanage  and  vicinity,  Dorsetshire,  England,  which  re- 
present in  North  America,  that  most  important  upper  part  of  the 
Jurassic  system,  called  now  on  the  continent  of  Europe  the  "Pur- 
beck i  an." 

In  California,  the  Inferior  Lias  or  Sinemurian  exists  in  Plumas 
county  and  also  near  Lake  Walker  (western  Nevada).  As  to  the 
narrow  band  of  slates  between  the  rive.  Stanislas  and  Merced, 
referred  by  the  Geological  Survey  of  California  (1860-76)  to  the 
Jurassic  system,  it  represents  the  Rhetlc  or  Upper  Trias.'  Mr.  J. 
D.  Whitney,  and  afterward  Messrs.  G.  F.  Becker,  C.  A.  White  and 
J.  S.  Diller,  have  referred  the  apparition  of  gold  in  the  Sierra 
Nevada  to  the  Jurassic  time,  because  gold  exists  in  the  Triassic 
slates  of  the  Mariposa  estate,  and  that  gold  quartz  veins  occur 
"  between  those  slates  and  not  simply  near  them."  I  have  never 
said  that  those  Triassic  slates  were  not  auriferous,  but  that  the  age 
of  the  apparition  of  gold  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  was  not  Jurassic, 
being  much  older,  ante-Taconic,  or  Lower  Palaeozoic  at  most. 

Being  deposited  among  golden  rocks,  which  formed  the  beds  and 
sides  of  the  "fiord,  the  Rhetic  marl  got  as  a  part  of  its  material,  gold 
dust  and  even  some  small  nuggets  entombed  in  them.  Long  after- 
wards, during  the  great  break  and  very  strong  pressure,  which 
have  given  the  Sierra  Nevada  its  actual  shape,  those  Triassic  maris 
were  laminated  into  slates,  more  or  less  metamorphosed  like  the 
other  Paheozoic  slates  among  which  they  were  forced  ;  and  it  is 
not  strange  that  they  partake  of  all  the  lithological  and  miner- 
alogical  characters  of  the  older  slates.  But  it  does  not  follow  be- 
cause they  "form  an  integral  portion  of  the  auriferous  series" 
{Notes  on  the  Stratigraphy  of  California,  by  G.  F.  Becker,  p.  19, 
Washington,  1885)  that  the  age  of  the  apparition  of  gold  in  the 
Sierra  Nevada  is  to  be  put  so  late  as  the  Jura.  The  extrication 
of  the  gold  from  the  quartz  matrix  being  due  to  pressure,  naturally 

^Note  sur  la  yiologie  de  la  Californie  par  J.  Marcou  (.Dull.  Soc.  giol.  France,  tome  xi, 
p.  407,  Paris,  18ti3). 


J.  i 


IIP 


38 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


gold  dust  entombed  in  the  Triassic  marl  of  the  Mariposa  may  have 
been  united  into  small  nuggets  during  the  process  of  lamination 
and  crushing.  An  extremely  limited  incident  in  a  small  portion 
of  the  gisement  of  gold  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  has  been  taken  as  an 
indication  of  the  true  age  of  the  apparition  of  that  precious  metal 
— another  of  the  numerous  errors  of  the  Geological  Survey  of 
California.^ 

As  it  was  to  be  expected,  my  discovery  of  the  Jurassic  system 
was  contested  at  once  and  denied  by  Messrs.  James  Hall,^  J.  D. 
Dana,  W.  P.  Blake,  J.  S.  Newberry,  the  two  Drs.  Shumard,  W. 
M.  Gabb,  F.  B.  Meek,  Dr.  C.  A.  Wliite,  H.  Newton,  etc. 

The  palaeontologist,  Mr.  James  Hall,  has  declared  most  emphati- 
cally that  the  "series  of  sandstone  and  clays  beneath  limestones  (of 
Pyramid  Mount  in  tlie  Tucumcari  area)  which  are  of  unquestion- 
able cretaceous  age  ;"  and  also  "  Having  examined  the  specimens 
in  Mr.  Marcou's  collection  from  this  locality,  I  have  no  hesitV'on 
in  saying  that  the  specimens  -abelled  by  him  as  Gryphoea  Tucum- 
carii  {G.  dilatata  var.  Tucumcarii)  are  the  Gryphcea  PUcheri  of 
Morton,  and  present  no  features  either  in  form,  ciiaracters,  condi- 
tion of  preservation,  or  otherwise,  which  can  serve  to  distinguish 
them  from  Gryphcea  PUcheri "  {Report  on  the  United  States  and 
Mexican  Boundary,  by  Major  W.  H.  Emory,  vol.  i,  part  ii,  Geol- 
ogy and  Palseontologj',  pp.  135  and  136,4'°,  Washington,  1857). 

The  two  Drs.  B.  F.  and  G.  G.  Shumard  have  identified  my 
Ostrea  Marshii  with  their  Ostrea  subovata  of  Fort  Washita ;  re- 
garding at  the  same  time  the  Jurassic  system  of  Tucumcari  as 
the  equivalent  of  the  Fort  Washita  limestone  which  they  have 

»Announced  with  great  pomp  and  emphasis  by  Mr.  J.  D.  Dana,  in  Amer.  Journ.  Sci., 
vol.  XXX,  a^  series,  Nov.,  1860,  p.  424,  who  says :  "no  similar  enterprise  in  the  United 
States  has  ever  been  set  on  foot  on  a  more  liberal  and  enlightened  basis,  or  opened  under 
more  favorable  auspices  as  respects  either  the  importance  of  the  woi^;  to  be  done  or  the 
ability  of  tliose  charged  with  the  duty;"  the  Geological  Survey  of  California,  Director 
J.  D.  Whitney,  alter  an  existence  ol  fifteen  years,  is  a  clioice  example  of  a  failure  among 
the  numerous  State  surveys.  It  had  not  even  publislied  the  smallest  sketch  geological 
map  of  tlie  State,  or  of  any  part  of  California,  nor  given  a  general  classiiScation  and 
nomenclature  worth  discussing.  And  instead  of  being  u  progress  over  wliat  was  tlien 
already  known  of  the  geology  of  California,  it  is  a  very  marked  backward  move— even 
as  regi.rds  the  physical  geography  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  Mount  Shasta,  classiQed  by 
Mr.  Whitney  and  his  assistants  as  being  devoid  of  glaciers. 

*  The  amount  and  tone  of  the  criticisms  and  strictuies  against  Mr.  Marcou's  discov- 
eries during  his  exploration  by  the  35th  parallel  of  latitude— the  first  crossing  of  the 
United  States  and  North  American  continent  by  a  geologist— is  anything  but  creditable 
to  all  those  involved  in  them  (see  Jieply  to  the  Criticisms  of  James  D.  Dana,  by  Jules 
Marcou,  Zurich,  185(t). 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


89 


placed  above  the  "Arenaceous  group"  and  "Red  river  group,"  that 
is  to  say  in  the  Upper  Cretaceous  system  of  Texas. 

Seldom  has  such  an  accumulation  of  errors,  palseontological, 
stratigraphical  and  lithological  been  committed  in  American  geol- 
ogy. For  the  mistakes  did  not  stop  there,  and  Messrs.  J.  Hall' 
and  the  brothers  Shumard,^  followed  by  Dr.  R.  H.  Loughridge^ 
and  others,  classified,  as  Lower  Cretaceous  or  Dakota  group  of 
Texas,  all  the  Triassic  system  besides  the  Jurassic;  at  the  same 
time  they  contrived  to  synchronize  the  Neocoviian  of  Fort  Wa- 
shita, the  False  Washita  and  Canadian  rivers  with  the  Marly  Chalk 
or  Turonian.'^ 

The  only  oiher  great  error  with  which  comparison  may  be  made 
is  the  Taconic  system.  The  same  men,  Messrs.  J.  Hall  and  J.  D. 
Dana,  by  erroneous  palseontological  determination  and  false  clas- 
sification, and  without  any  regard  to  practical  geology  and  strati- 
graphy, have  misled  those  who  followed  their  views.  To  be  sure 
there  is  no  excuse  for  any  practical  geologist  accepting  errors,  trying 
to  force  them  as  true,  and  spreading  such  notions  on  American  ge- 
ology ;  and  all  followers  and  propagators  of  J.  Hall  and  J.  D.  Da- 
na's stupendous  mistakes  will  have  to  take  their  shares  in  the  blame, 
which  one  day  is  sure  to  reach  them.  It  is  only  a  question  of  time, 
which  now  cannot  last  many  years  longer  ;  for  it  has  gone  already 
too  long  for  the  good  reputation  of  American  geology.  It  is  un- 
necessary to  say  that  no  one  of  my  opponents  had  visited  the 
Tucumcari  area,  and  that  until  1887,  no  geologist  had  been  there 
except  myself,  in  1853.  All  the  government  exploring  geologists 
from  1858,  until  now,  have  carefully  avoided  coming  at  a  distance 
of  at  least  one  hundred  miles  from  the  northern  part  of  the  llano 
Estacado  and  Pyramid  Mount.     The  main  object  of  Dr.  J.  S.  New- 


>  Report  U.  S.  and  Mexican  Boundary  and  Geological  Map  attached,  1857. 

«  A  Partial  Report  on  the  Geology  of  Western  Texas,  by  Geo.  G.  Slmmard,    Austin, 
1886. 

»  Tenth  Census  of  the  U.  S. 

<  Dr.  G.  G.  Shiimard  in  A  partial  report  on  the  Geology  of  Western  Texas,  Austin, 
1886,  describes  wliat  he  calls:  "the  Lower  Cretaceous  or  Marly  clay  group,"  with  re- 
marks on  the  "paIa.>ontology"  of  this  formation,  at  pp.  2-1  to  27,  which  to  say  the  least  ia 
a  curious  reading.  Combined  with  the  paper  of  his  brother  Dr.  B.  F.  Shumard  entitled 
Observations  upon  the  Cretaceous  Strata  of  Texas,  St.  Louis,  18(iO,  we  have  an  array  of 
errors  almost  incredible.  For  they  have  not  the  excuse  of  being  unacquainted  with 
the  country— at  least  a  great  part  of  Texas  and  New  Mexico— and  it  ia  hard  to  conceive 
how  two  observers,  one  a  pretty  good  palaeontologist,  could  have  erred  to  such  aa 
extent. 


40 


AMERICAN   GEOLOOICAL 


berry's  two  explorations  in  1858  and  1859  was  to  control  and  if 
possible  to  deny  all  Mr.  Maroon's  observations  and  discoveries  in 
New  Mexico.  Truly  he  did  all  he  could  to  juslifj  Messrs.  Hall 
and  Dana's  confidence,  using  to  his  best  his  opportunity.  How- 
ever, he  was  rather  shy  of  recording  his  observations  on  a  map  ; 
and  after  his  failure  of  a  geological  map  for  the  Colorado,  Grand 
Canon  and  Moquis  r-rpedilion  (in  two  sheets,  Nos.  1  and  2  of  Ives' 
Jieport  of  the  Colorado  river),  he  did  not  venture  to  publish  a  geo- 
logical map  of  his  second  expedition  in  New  Mexico,  notwithstand- 
ing his  long  stay  and  explorations  around  Santa  Fe. 

His  results  were  heralded,  first  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Meek,  pub- 
lished in  the  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxviii,  second  Series,  p.  298, 
1859,  under  the  attractive  and  sensational  title:  Dr.  Newberry's 
late  Exj^lorations  in  New  Mexico.  He  shows  Marcou's  so-called  Ju- 
rassic to  be  Cretaceous;  then  Dr.  Newberry  published  two  volumi- 
nous reports,  Colorado  Exploring  Expedition,  Geological  Report,  4'°, 
Washington,  18G1,  and  Santa  Fe  to  Green  river  Exploring  Expedi- 
tion, Geological  iie/jort,  4'",  Washington,  1876  ;*  and  afterward  from 
fear  that  his  results  might  not  be  accepted,  he  dispatched  in  the 
region  of  Santa  Fe  and  Fort  Union,  his  pupil,  Mr.  J.  J.  Steven- 
son, with  the  special  purpose  to  maintain  them. 

I  have  never  answered  Dr.  Newberry's  assertions  and  observa- 
tions, because  he  did  not  give  any  really  serious  material  proofs 
against  nie.  He  chose  to  publish  loose  observations,  wanting  in 
details,  exactness,  and  palteontological  knowledge.  To  be  sure 
he  has  emphatically  declared  that  the  "Jurassic  rocks  do  not  occur 
on  any  part  of  the  route  followed  by  Mr.  Marcou,  and  where  he 
claims   to  have  discovered  thera"^  (Explor.  Exped.  Santa  Fe  to 


>  Any  impartial  reader  of  these  two  works  will  be  astonished  at  the  constant  attacks 
of  Dr.  Newl)erry  against  me.  It  seems  as  if  he  were  eager  to  vie  with  the  bitterness 
and  injustice  of  tlie  previous  attacks  by  Messrs.  J.  Hall,  J.  D.  Dana  and  W.  P.  Blake; 
and  as  thougli  he  wanted  to  give  the  impression  that  it  was  almost  ii  crime  on  my  part, 
to  have  the  audacity  to  maintain  my  observatious,  saying  that  such  a  proceeding  is 
"  almost  unentlurablc." 

The  boldness  witli  which  Dr.  Newberry  has  tried  to  throw  against  me  his  rather 
childish  oliji'ciions  and  undigested  views  and  opinions  on  New  Mexican  geology  is  al- 
most incredible,  and  shows  >i'hat  a  prejudiced  man  and  an  amateur  geologist  and  palas- 
ontologist  is  able  to  accumulate  in  order  to  prevent  the  acceptation  of  "truth." 

'  More  tlian  twenty  years  alter,  two  maps,  marked  sheets  Nos.  75  and  76  of  the  Geo- 
logicnl  Atlas.W  Uee\ev'6  Kxplorations,  have  given  the  geology  of  my  route  from  Inscrip- 
tion rocks,  at  the  western  foot  of  the  Sierra  de  Zunl  to  Cactus  Pass  and  the  Bill  Wil- 
liam fork.  On  slicet  No.  ^^  my  name  was  inscribed  without  my  knowledge  with  those 
of  Messrs.  U.  K.  Gilbert  and  A.  K.  Marviue  as  geological  assistants,  notwithstanding 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


41 


Green  River,  p.  142)  ;  and  he  has  used  the  dicotyledonous  leaves 
with  great  advantage  to  him,  as  well  as  what  he  was  pleased  to  call 
the  Oryphcea  Pitcheri  and  Gryphcea  Tucumcarii ;  but  at  the  same 
time  he  has  always  been  very  careful  not  to  localize  on  a  geo- 
logical map  the  exact  points  where  he  found  them,  and  he  did  not 
publish  figures  or  descriptions  of  any  sort  of  the  two  Gryphiea  and 
of  the  leaves,  an  easy  way  to  escape  control  and  to  appear  as  an  ex- 
pert in  the  matter.  Two  quotations  of  his  reports  will  be  sufHcient 
to  show  his  ability  and  what  degree  of  confidence  may  be  placed  in 
him  as  a  practical  geologist  and  palaeontologist. 

At  p.  42  of  his  Geological  Report  of  the  Colorado  Expl.  Exped.^ 
Dr.  Newberry  gives  a  "Section  of  the  Canon  of  the  Colorado,  etc.," 
absolutely  fantastical  when  compared  with  the  sections  of  the  grand 
canon  of  the  Colorado  published  lately  by  Major  J.  W.  Powell  {Ge- 
ology of  Uinta  Mountains^  p.  61,  4*°,  Washington,  1876)  and  Mr. 
C.  D.  Walcott  {Pre- carboniferous  strata  in  the  Grand  Canon  of  the 
Colorado,  Arizona,  in  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxvi,  Dec,  1883, 
and  Classifications  of  the  Cambrian  System  of  North  America,  in 
Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxxii,  Aug.,  1886,  p.  144,  fig.  4,  Grand 
Canon  section).  A  more  easy  section  is  difficult  to  find,  and  Dr. 
Newberry's  complete  failure  to  make  it  out,  calling  Potsdam,  Silu- 
rian, Devonian  rocks  which  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with 
those  formations,  is  anything  bi't  creditable. 

At  p.  83  of  the  same  Report  of  the  Colorado  Expedition,  Dr. 


the  erroneous  reference  by  Mr.  Gilbert  of  the  rocks  between  Cniion  Diablo  and  the  ex- 
tinct S(in  Francisco  volcano,  to  the  Carboniferous  instead  of  the  Dyas  (Permian)  as  I 
have  called  them.  But  for  tlie  sheet  No.  7U,  I  protested  against  the  further  use  of  my 
name,  except  if  my  determination  of  Dyas,  Trias  and  Jura,  as  I  found  them,  should 
be  recorded  on  the  map,  sending  a  corrected  map  according  to  my  observations  and 
views.  My  corrections  were  not  accepted,  and  consequently  my  name  was  witlidrawn 
from  sheet  No.  70.  Mr.  Gilbert  failed  to  recognize  tlic  Dyas  and  Jura,  maintaining 
Dr.  Newberry's  views. 

Lately  (August,  lt>87)  Captain  C.  E.  Dutton  has  given  a  Geologic  Map  of  Northwest- 
e;  n  Mexico,  1884  (Sixtli  Ann.  Rep.  U.  S.  Geol.  Surv.,  i>late  xiv,  p.  128,  Washington,  1885 
[1887]),  covering  my  route  from  Laguna  to  Zuui  (see  tlie  Geological  Map  o/Keio  Mexico, 
by  Jules  Marcou,  ISHl);  and  in  which  he  gives  tbeJurasnic  rocks,  with  a  point  of  interro- 
gation, tlrsl  at  Laguna,  then  on  eai^li  side  of  the  Sierra  de  Zuni  and  all  around  Zuui. 
Besides,  the  Dyas  exi^^ts  on  the  road  tVom  Aqnafriato  Inscription  rocks.  So,  according 
to  this  observer,  mv  discoveries  of  18.53  are  accepted  and  made  use  of.  To  be  8ure  I  did 
not  recognize  tiie  Dyas  at  the  same  s|)ot,  because  it  was  covered  then  by  a  thick  lorest 
at  the  very  narrow  strip  wliere  I  crossed  It;  but  fartlicr  west  near  C.-iiion  Dial)lo,  I  did 
not  hesitate  to  refer  to  the  Dyas,  the  magiiesian  limestone  of  tlie  region.  It  is  a  ilrst 
Btep  toward  the  recognition  of  my  discoveries  after  more  tiiun  tliirty  years  of  nega- 
tion of  the  exactness  of  my  observations. 


42 


AMKRICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


Newberry  says,  that  he  found  near  the  Moqiiis  villages  in  a  coal 
seam  a  Juraftsic  Jlonda  which  he  describes,  on  pp.  129  to  132, 
with  figures.  In  his  second  Exploring  Expedition  from  Santa  Fe 
to  Green  River,  on  p.  142,  he  says:  "  It  is,  however,  true  at  the 
present  time  that  no  Jurassic  plants  have  been  found  on  this  con- 
tinent." 

Nothing  can  be  more  conclusive  than  these  two  examples  ;  for 
we  have  there,  in  indubitable  form,  Dr.  Newberry's  way  of  observ- 
ing as  a  stratigraphist  and  a  palaeontologist. 

His  pu[)il  Professor  J.  J.Stevenson  was  no  more  successful,  and 
his  Report  upon  Northern  New  Mexico  during  the  years  1878  and 
1879,  in  Wheeler's  U.  S.  Geographical  Survey,  vol.  iii,  Siqiplement ; 
Geology,  4'°,  Washington,  1881,  contains  an  extremely  meagre  ac- 
count, vvithout  a  single  fact  to  sustain  it  or  even  worth  recording, 
of  the  Trias  and  Jurassic,  which  he  calls  "Jura-Trias."  Although 
he  explored  at  leisure  the  Upper  Canadian  and  the  vicinity  of  Fort 
Union,  Pecos  and  Galisteo  villages,  he  did  not  find  the  Gryphcea 
Pitcheri,  nor  the  Gryjthma  dilatata  var.  Tucumcarii,  so  often  quoted 
by  Dr.  Newberry  in  that  same  area ;  and  he  hardly  refers  to  the 
dicotyledonous  leaves,  except  in  one  instance  of  a  few  iiidistinct  im- 
pressions near  the  Galisteo  creek.  Notwithstanding  these  defects 
and  absolute  want  of  proofs,  Mr.  Stevenson  has  given  a  geological 
map  of  North  Central  New  Mexico,  No.  3,  showing  a  most  extra- 
ordip.ary  geographical  distribution  of  Dakota  cretaceotis  !  of  Car- 
boniferous !  and  a  "  linear  outcrop  of  Jura-Trias  !"  which  endorses 
entirely  Dr.  Newberry's  erroneous  views. 

I  have  so  often  shown  the  grave  errors  made  in  identifying  the 
Gryphcea  Tucumcarii  and  Ostrea  Marshii  with  the  G.  Pitcheri  and 
0.  subovnta,  that  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  insist  again.  However, 
I  have  lately  received  specimens  from  Fort  Washita,  which  have 
led  me  to  review  the  whole  subject,  and  the  result  is  that  there  is 
absolutely  nothing  in  common  between  the  Gryphcea  Pitcheri  of 
Morton  and  Roemer  and  the  Gryphcea  Tucumcarii.  Their  charac- 
ters are  different  in  every  way,  and  tlie  Jurassic  form  of  tiie  Tu- 
cumcari  area  cannot  be  confounded  with  any  cretaceous  Gryphcea 
or  Ostracce.  It  is  a  case  even  more  clear  and  with  more  distin- 
guishing characteristics,  as  between  the  Atops  trilineatus  Emmons 
of  the  Taconic  identified  by  Mr.  J.  Hall  with  the  Calymene  Beckii, 
C"  the  Elliptocephala  asaphoides  regarded  by  him  as  an  Asaphus. 


CLASSIFICATION   AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


43 


In  both  cases,  the  paleeontologist  of  New  York  has  given  false 
determination  of  fossils,  in  order  to  suppress  great  systems  of  strata, 
the  Taconic  and  the  Jura,  of  which  his  knowledge  is  most  deficient. 


I 


XL     Cretaceous  System. 

L.  Vanuxem  was  the  first  geologist  who  discovered  the  Creta- 
ceous system  in  North  America.  It  was  in  1828.  (Geological  ob- 
servations on  the  Secondary,  Tertiarti  and  Alluvial  formations  of  the 
Atlantic  const  of  the  United  States  of  America.  Arranged  from  the 
notes  of  Lardner  Vanuxem,  by  S.  G.  ]\Iorton,  Philadel|)hia.)  He 
also  made  the  true  distinction  between  the  Secondary,  Tertiary  and 
Quaternary  rocks. 

The  American  Cretaceous  system,  like  the  European  Cretaceous, 
is  divided  into  three  great  divisions.'  First,  tiie  Neocomian  found- 
ed at  Fort  Washita  and  on  the  False  Washita  and  Canadian  rivers 
by  J.  Marcou  in  1853.  Until  now  the  Neocomian  exists  only  in 
Texas  and  in  the  Indian  Territory.  When  it  was  deposited  and 
consequently  at  the  end  of  the  Jurassic  epoch,  a  great  upheaving 
of  the  North  American  continent  took  place  and  there  was  then 
more  dry  land  or  terra  Jirma  than  ever  before  and  probably  than 
now.  But  during  the  Middle  Cretaceous  great  changes  took  place, 
subsidences  can  be  signalized  on  two-thirds  of  the  continent  and 
finally,  at  the  end  of  the  Cenomanian,  the  sea  invaded  the  whole 
basin  of  the  ui)per  Missouri,  the  Rocky  Mountains  region  north  and 
south,  the  Colorado  basin,  etc.  It  was  the  last  extensive  inva- 
sion of  the  sea  in  America.  After  the  deposition  of  the  Neoco- 
mian, a  great  erosion  with  upheaval  in  Texas  and  subsidence  in 
all  other  parts  of  the  United  States,  took  place,  and  we  have  had 
the  deposits  of  the  "Lower  Cross  Timber  group  and  basal  shales" 
of  Mr.  Hill  of  Trcas, representing  in  part  the  Gault  and  Green  sand 
of  England,  the  Cenomanian  of  France.  It  was  immediately  fol- 
lowed, in  the  Great  Missouri  basin,  the  Colorado,  etc.,  by  the  dep- 
osition of  the  true  Marly  and  White  chalk  or  Txironian  and  Senonian 
of  d'Orbigny. 

>  If  the  Gnult  or  Middle  Cretaceous  is  to  be  united  with  the  Neocomian  and  form  the 
Lower  Crttaceous— the  Cretaceous  pyftem  being  divided  into  two  great  divisions  of 
tlie  third  order,  Instead  of  three— then  we  have  in  Texas  in  tlie  Lower  Cretaceous,  the 
"Comanche  series"  of  Mr.  Robert  T.  Hill,  aud  his  "Lower  Cross  Timber  series."  I 
have  no  objection  against  tliis  grouping  of  the  Cretaceous  system,  which  seems  to  ob* 
tain  the  majority  of  the  opinions  of  the  luteruatioual  Geological  Congress,  for  the  pro* 
posed  geological  map  of  Europe. 


44 


AMERICAN   6K0LOOICAL 


This  lust  gi-ea  tdivision  is  the  most  common,  being  well  devel- 
oped with  variable  groups  called  Dakota,  Colorado  and  Fox  Hills  ; 
and  also  subdivisions,  such  xs  Fort  Benton,  Niobrara  and  Fort 
Pierre  groups  or  sub-stages. 

The  exact  s3'nchroni8m  of  the  Cretaceous  of  the  Great  Missouri 
basin  was  made  by  Marcou  in  18G3,  when  ho  recognized  the  Dakota 
group  of  Nebraska  and  Sioux  city  (Iowa),  as  belonging  already 
to  the  true  Chalk  instead  of  the  Lower  Cretaceous  of  Messrs.  Hall 
and  Meek  and  forming  a  part  of  the  Turonian  or  Marly  chalk;  re- 
ferring at  the  same  time  the  cretaceous  marl  of  Galisteo  (New  Mex- 
ico) to  the  same  horizon.  The  Cenomanian  does  not  exist  there, 
and  the  geologists,  who  even  now  refer  the  Dakota  group  to  it,  are 
mistaken. 

In  California  the  Cretaceous  is  limited  to  the  northwest  corner  of 
the  state  and  occupies  a  small  area  west  of  Mount  Shasta.  The 
Geological  Survey  directed  by  Mr.  J.  D.  Whitney  has  called  Creta- 
ceous all  the  Eoc(Mie  of  Fort  Tejon  and  Ciiico  creek.  Lately,  Dr. 
C.  A.  White  (Oh  the  Mesozoic  and  Cenozoic  palceoiUology  of  Call' 
fornia,  p.  17,  in  Bulletin  U.  S.  Geol.  Surv.  No.  15,  Washington, 
1885)  has  put  forward  as  a  sort  of  compromise,  the  notion  that  the 
"  Chico  group"  is  "  later  than  any  formation  that  has  yet  been  re- 
ferred to  the  Cretaceous  period  either  in  Europe  or  in  America  ;" 
and  is  more  recent  than  any  one  known  except  perhaps  in  New 
Zealand.  1 

A  great  Cretaceous  division  of  the  third  order,  of  5,000  feet  thick, 
and  unique  in  the  northern  hemisphere  is  a  needless  impossibility  ; 
for  the  Chico  formation  represents  in  California  the  Lower  or  true 
Eocene,  having  a  fauna  contemporaneous  and  most  characteristic 
of  the  Tertiary  epoch.  The  existence  of  only  two  or  three  degen- 
erate representatives  of  genera  of  the  Cephalopod  family  in  the 
Chico  group  has  misled  Messrs.  Gabb,  Newberry  and  White ;  pa- 
laeontology being  for  them  narrowly  confined  only  to  the  Cepha- 
lopoda, and  to  an  absolute  rule  of  extinction  all  the  workl  over 


•  The  same  niithor  says :  "  The  Larnmic  group  represents  in  America  a  great  and  im- 
portniil  period  of  [tlie  Cretaceous  Hystem]  whici)  is  yet  unknown  in  any  other  part  of 
the  worli!  "  {Eleventh  Ann.  Hep.  U.  S.  Geol.  and  Geogr.  Survey  for  1877,  p.  '264,  Wash- 
ington, i87!0-  It  appears  Irom  tliese  two  quotations  tliat  Dr.  Wliite  regards  tlie  two 
great  groups  of  Laramie  and  Cliico,  as  Cretaceous,  but  not  contemporaneous  and  at  the 
same  time  botli  more  recent  tlian  any  grou|)8  in  tlie  Atlantic  States  and  in  Europe; 
an  opinion  rather  eccentric  which  it  will  be  dilUcult  to  burmonize  with  any  classiflcu- 
tion  and  nomenclature. 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


45 


W 


of  the  Ammonites,  Ifelicoceras  nnd  BacuUtm, — certainly  a  very  pe- 
culiar interpretation  of  fossil  remains  and  their  use  in  goology. 

An  important  remark  is  that  tlie  Dakota  group  is  always  re- 
garded as  Loiver  Cretaceous  by  Mr.  J.  Hall  and  his  followers,  and 
one  of  them  has  gone  so  far  as  to  say,  that  I  have  pronounced 
the  Dakota  group  as  being  at  "  the  base  of  the  Cretaceous  as  that 
series  is  accepted  in  America"  (U.  S.  Geographical  Survey  west 
of  the  100th  meridian,  vol.  iii,  Stipplement —  Geology,  by  J.  J.  Ste- 
venson, p.  153,  4'°,  Washington,  1881). 

I  am  obliged  to  repeat  once  more  that,  in  1863,  during  my  ex- 
plorations in  Nebraska  {Une reconnoissance rjeolngique au  Nebraska 
par  Jules  Marcou,  in  Bnlletin  Soc.  geol.  cle  France,  tome  xxi,  p.  132, 
Paris,  1864),  I  referred  the  Dakota  group  to  tiie  Upper  Cretaceous 
of  America,  and  forming  the  first  group  of  the  true  Chalk  formation 
containing  White  Chalk^  as  in  Europe. 

In  1853  I  recognized  the  Neocomian  far  below  the  Dakota  group, 
and  in  1861 1  gave  a  tabular  view  of  the  Texas  cretaceous  showing 
the  three  great  divisions  as  in  Europe  {Notes  on  the  Cretaceous  and 
Carboniferous  Rocks  of  Texas,  l)y  J.  Marcou,  in  Proceed.  Boston 
Soc.  Nat.  Hist.,  vol.  viii,  p.  93,  Boston). 

Dr.  C.  A.  Wliite,  following  Messrs.  J.  Hall,  Shumard  and  Meek 
says :  "  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  we  have  in  North  America 
no  strata,  which  are,  according  to  European  standar  Is,  equivalent 
with  the  Lower  Cretaceous  of  Europe,  but  that  all  Noi  th  American 
strata  of  the  Cretaceouu  period  are  equivalent  with  those  of  the 
Upper  Cretaceous  of  that  part  of  the  world"  {Eleventh  Ann.  Rep. 
U.  S.  Geol.  and  Geogr.  Survey  for  \9>11,  p.  264,  Washington,  1879)  ; 
passing  over  my  discovery  in  1853,  of  the  Neocomian  in  Texas  and 
the  Indian  Territory,  and  my  tabular  view  of  the  Texas  Creta- 
ceous {Notes  on  the  Cretaceous  rocks  of  Texas,  in  Proceed.  Boston 
Soc.  Nat.  Hist.,  vol.  vni,  [>p.  80-93,  1861).  Lately,  however,  Dr. 
White,  better  informed  on  tlie  1  ?xas  Cretaceous,  by  the  original 
researches  of  his  assistant  Mr.  R.  T.  Hill,  has  admitted  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Neocomian,  and  with  some  reluctance  the  exactness  of 
my  tabular  view  of  1861  {On  the  Cretaceous  formation  of  Texas, 
and  their  relation  to  those  of  other  portions  of  North  America  by 


'It  was  the  first  discovery  and  announcement  of  the  existence  of  true  chalk  which 
can  be  used  ns  such  in  America.  Dr.  Hayden  more  than  two  yeiirs  after  referred  to 
the  existence  of  true  chalk  in  America,  neglecting  to  say  who  made  tlie  discovery,  and 
seeming  to  appear  as  the  iXiacoverer  (Description  of  an  extentive  chalk  depotit  on  the 
Missouri  river,  by  Dr.  Hayden  iu  Proceed,  Amer.  Phil.  Soc,  November  16, 1880,  Phila- 
delphia). 


si^^^i^A 


46 


AMEniCAN    OKOLOGICAL 


C.  A.  White,'  in  Proceed.  Acad.  2^at.  Sci.,  riiiladclphia,  February, 
1887). 

Mr.  R.  T.  Hill  has  given  recently  a  detailed  classification  and 
nomenclature  of  the  Cretaceous  of  Texas  :  The  Topography  and 
Geology  of  the  Cross  Timbers  and  surrounding  region  in  Northern 
Texas,  in  Amer.  Jonrn.  Sci.,yo\.  xxxiii,  p.  299,  1887,  in  which  he 
corrects  the  errors  of  Messrs.  Roenier  and  the  two  brothers  Slui- 
mard,  already  signalized  by  me  as  far  back  as  1861. 

In  a  second  paper  entitled  "The  Texas  Section  of  the  American 
Cretaceous"  {Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  vol.  xxxiv,  Oct.,  1887,  p.  287), 
Mr.  Hill  places  the  "Dakota"  as  the  equivalent  of  his  "Lower  Cross 
Timber  division,"  regarding  also  the  "Eagle  ford  shales"  as  well 
as  the  "Dakota"  as  Middle  Cretaceous.  The  fauna  of  the  Engle 
ford  shales  is  identical  with  the  fauna  of  the  Dakota  of  Galisteo 
(New  Mexico)  and  Sioux  City  (Iowa),  and  belongs  to  the  inferior 
part  of  the  Upper  Cretaceous,  or  true  Chalk  formation,  or  Tmonian. 
The  Lower  Cross  Timber  division  may  perhaps  be  referred  to  tlie 
Middle  Cretaceous  or  Cenomanian  ;  but  it  will  require  additional 
researches  before  we  can  reach  any  definite  conclusion. 

As  to  the  Washita  and  Fredericksburg  divisions,  called  now  by 
Mr.  Hill  "Comanche  series,"  their  two  faunas  represent  the  Neo- 
comian,  the  Aptian  and  the  Cenomanian  of  the  Jura  Mountains,  to 
which  I  referred  them  in  1863  and  1861. 

The  upper  portion  of  the  "Washita  division"  is  certainly  young- 
er than  the  Neocomian  and  ouglit  to  be  referred  to  the  Middle  Cre- 
taceous, having  a  fauna  wliich  has  many  affinities  with  the  Green 


>  HiiTing  committed  himself  so  strongly  in  1870,  in  regard  to  the  nge  nnd  synchronism 
of  tlie  greiit  divisions  of  tlie  American  and  European  Cretaceous  system,  Ur.  Clinrlcs 
A.  Wliitc  tried  his  best  to  escape  from  the  responsibility,  talcing  great  cure  at  tiie  same 
time  to  appear  as  nn  original  investigator  and  discoverer. 

His  paper  is  a  ratlier  singular  eulogy  of  very  poor  works,  saying  "  the  work  so  well 
begun  by  Dr.  Sluimard;"  "the  really  valuable  work  of  Dr.  B.  F.  Sliumard;"  "the  ad- 
mirable work  of  Prof.  Uoemer."  It  would  have  been  more  Just,  if  instead  of  praising 
the  great  mistakes  and  constant  errors  of  Messrs.  Ferdinand  Uoemer,  James  Hall,  the 
two  Drs.  Sliumard  and  their  followers,  he  had  simply  given  their  tallies  of  superposition 
of  the  strata  and  general  sections,  with  their  homotaxial  opinions,  and  placed  them 
in  full  view  of  my  table  of  IWil  of  the  Cretaceous  strata  of  Texas,  and  of  the  general 
section  lately  arrived  at  by  Mr.  U.  T.  Hill.  The  comparison  of  those  tables  would  have 
permitted  every  reader  to  judge  for  himself  of  the  real  value  of  the  work,  done  by  each 
observer. 

But,  instead,  Dr.  White,  against  all  the  rules  of  priority,  passes  over  my  discoveries 
of  18.i3  and  my  observations  of  1861,  and  tries  to  make  believe,  that  he  is  the  discoverer 
of  "  the  true  relations  of  the  different  Cretaceous  formations  which  have  long  been 
known  to  'sxist  within  the  state  of  Texas,"  wlien  he  simply  endorses  and  patronizes 
the  investigations  of  his  chief  assistant  Mr.  Hill,  and  revives  the  discoveries  and  opin- 
ions given  by  mo  in  1853,  18G1  and  1863. 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMENCLATCnE. 


47 


sand  and  Gnult  fiuiiia  of  England  and  tlie  Jura  (or  tlie  Aptlan,  AU 
bian  and  Cenonianian  of  d'Oibigny). 

Mr.  Hill  in  liis  two  papers  identifies  the  Gryphcca  dilatata,  var. 
Tucnmcarii  a,\n\  the  Ostrea  Mamhii  of  the  Pyramid  Mount  section, 
in  the  Tucunieari  region,  with  sjjecies  of  his  "Washita  division" 
of  central  Texas,  and  refers  the  Jurassic  system  of  the  northwest 
corner  of  the  llano  Kstacado  to  the  lower  part  of  his  Washita  di- 
vision, calling  it  "Jurassic  and  Neocomian  of  Marcou,"  a  confusion 
which  I  did  not  make,  having  on  the  contrary  insisted  on  their 
complete  separation,  and  protested  again  and  again  against  such 
erroneous  views.  As  Mr.  llill  luis  not  yet  explored  the  Tucumcari 
region,  he  has  simply  repeated  the  old  mistake  of  Messrs.  James 
Hall,  Meek,  the  two  brothers  Shumard,  Newberry  and  others. 
However  he  has  separated,  what  he  calls  the  Gryphwa  PUcheri 
var.  dilatata  Marcou  (which  I  suppose  is  my  Oryphoiii  dilatala  var. 
Tucumcarii)  not  only  from  the  true  Gryjiluva  PUcheri  of  Morton, 
but  he  goes  so  far  even  as  to  place  it  as  a  distinct  variety  from  the 
GryphoM  Pitcheri  \ni'.  navia  Couviu],  and  the  Gryphcea  Pitdierivav. 
forniculata  White,  having  then  three  varieties  of  the  G.  PUcheri, 
besides  the  typical  species.  Farther  on,  Mr.  Hill  calls  the  G.  Pitch' 
eri  an  "anomalous  form"  which,  according  to  his  view,  is  "a  Ju- 
rassic form,  which  has  continued  into  the  Cretaceous  of  this  coun- 
try ;"  adding  that  the  G.  PUcheri  var.  navia  of  Conrad  "is  almost 
indistinguishable  from  the  G.  arcicala  of  the  European  Lias." 

All  these  wavering  and  singular  opinions,  brought  up  and  origi- 
nated by  the  confusion  of  a  false  identification  made  by  INIr.  James 
Hall,  show  a  desire  to  bring  an  excuse  and  pave  the  way  for  a 
change  in  the  determination  given  with  such  certainty  and  au- 
thority in  1856  and  1857,  h"  my  adversaries.  Messrs.  Hill  and 
White  have  just  begun  to  realize  that  the  Gryphcea  contains  less 
"confusing  variations,"  than  the  "later  Ostreidm."  A  more  careful 
study  of  the  sub-genera  Gryphcea  will  convince  them  that  confusion 
has  arisen  only  from  a  want  of  knowledge,  and  that  the  American 
Gryphcea  are  as  well  defined,  and  as  good  species,  as  the  European 
ones  ;  and  more,  they  will  see  that  the  G.  PUcheri  is  easily  distin- 
guishable not  only  from  the  G.  arcuata  of  the  Lower  Lias,  but  also 
from  G.  obliqua  and  G.  cymhium  of  the  Middle  Lias,  and  from  the 
G.  dilatata  of  the  Oxfordian.  Close  study  and  attentive  compar- 
ative palaeontology  and  stratigraphy  will  show  them,  how  and  why, 
errors  on  the  part  of  my  adversaries  have  been  so  persistently 
maintained. 


48 


AMKUICAN    GKOI-OOICAL 


XII.    LowKu  Tkhtiaiiy  Systkm. 

The  Tertinry  series  two  divided  into  two  Hysteina,  well  jtinrked 
by  tiicir  strtitignipliy,  pMlivoiitolojiy,  litliolo^y  ftud  gPogrn|)iiieul 
diHtrihiitioii.  Tlie  marine  tmd  tetreNtiiul  t'luituu  nltlioii^h  speeiiil 
to  AniericH,  are  Hiinilar  and  related  hy  many  a  link,  with  thuse  of 
the  Tertiary  of  Eniope,  A.sia  and  Africa. 

The  names  Kocene  and  Olijfoeene  can  be  retained  and  nsed  with 
advantii«j;e  on  account  of  their  <lin'nHion  and  well-known  meaning. 

In  Norlli  America,  the  inferior  or  Lower  Tertiary  is  well  devel- 
oped in  the  states  bordering  the  Atlantic  and  the  (inlf  of  Mexico, 
Messrs.  Conrad,  Lyell,  Tnomey,  E.  W.  Ililgard,  K.  A.  Smith  and 
A.  Heilprin  have  given  good  descriptions  and  classirications  of  the 
Lower  Tertiary  {United  States  Tertiary  Geology,  by  Angelo  Ileil- 
l)rin,  4°,  Philadelphia,  18H4).  The  Eocene  is  divided  into  four 
groups  :  (1)  The  Eo-ligniticat  the  base  in  Alabama  and  the  Shark 
river  deposits  of  New  Jersey;  (2)  The  Buhrstone  or  Chalk  Hills 
of  Alabama;  (3)  The  celebrated  Claiborne  arenaceous  formation 
of  Alabama;  and  (4)  The  Jackson  beds  of  Mississippi. 

Then  come  the  Oligocene  represented  by  the  "  Wick  lime- 

stone" and  the  Florida  immnlitic  beds. 

In  the  interior  part  of  the  continent,  upper  Missouri  basin, 
Rocky  Mountains  region,  Colorado  basin  and  the  Columbia  valley, 
we  have  immense  and  most  important  fresh-water  deposits,  contem- 
poraneous and  homotaxial  strata  with  the  European  Lower  Tertiary 
and  with  the  marine  deposits  of  Califorjiia,  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and 
the  Atlantic  states.  Four  divisions  into  well-marked  groups  are  ea- 
sily recognized  :  first,  the  brackish-water  formation  called  "  Lara- 
mie group  "  representing  "  the  Calcaire  pisoUtique  cle  Paris,  Lignite 
du  Soissonais,  Sables  de  Cnisse,  and  the  Tufean  de  Ciplyet  Calcaire 
de  Nons,  or  Lower  Eocene  of  Belgium.  Then  come  the  "Wasatch 
group,"  the  "Fort  Bridger  group"  and  the  "  Uinta  group,"  so  well 
developed  and  so  rich  in  fossil  vertebrates  south  and  southeast  of 
Fort  Bridger  in  Wyoming. 

As  to  the  "  Chico  creek  group"  of  California,  it  represents  the 
Lower  Eocene  of  France  ( Calcaire  de  Rilly,  Lignite  du  Soissonais, 
Sables  de  Brachenx  et  de  Guisse)  ;  the  Lower  Eocene  of  Belgium 
(Landenien,  Yjn-esien,  etc.),  and  the"Thanet  sand"  and  "London 
clay  "  of  England. 

The  "Tejon  group,"  also  of  California,  so  well  developed  near 
Fort  Tejon,  is  without  a  possible  doubt  the  equivalent  of  the  Cal- 


CI,A88IFI0ATION   AND   NOHKNCLATURR. 


o 


caire grn.Hifler  jind  tlio  Ores  de  lienucluimp  of  tlio  Pails  bnsln.  Its 
fauna  is  rclattMl  and  a  continuation  of  tliu  Cliico  group  fauna. 
Dr.  Cliarles  A.  White's  description  of  C'hico-T<'j<m  Hfrien  ("On 
the  Mosozoic  and  Cenozoic  paljuontology  of  California,"  in  Hull. 
U.  S.  Oeol.  Snrv.  No.  1ft,  pp.  11  to  17,  Wasliington,  1886)  is  nei- 
tlier  correct  nor  coinploto  ;  tlie  paliuontology  of  tlic  Cliico  group 
being  left  out  almost  entirely. 

I  am  the  only  geologist  who  has  given  yet  a  detailed  section  ami 
description  of  the  typical  locality  of  Fort  Tejon  ("  Report  on  the 
geology  of  a  portion  of  Southern  California,"  in  Aim.  licpnrt  Gcog. 
Surv.west  lOOth  Meridian,  for  187G,  pp.  168-172,  Washington, 
1876) ;  and  nevertheless  Dr.  White  passes  over  it  entirely  un- 
noticed. This  neglect  is  inexcusable,  for  I  showed  him  in  No- 
vember, 1875,  my  specimens,  pointing  out  the  new  species,  with 
new  names  given  by  me,  and  which  he  promised  to  retain  and  use. 
Not  only  he  did  not  publish  my  fossils,  as  it  was  his  duty  to  do, 
as  palteontologist-in-charge  of  Wheeler's  survey,  but  he  now  car- 
vies  his  inaccuracy  so  far  as  to  attribute  toothers  the  merit  of  hav- 
ing first  sustained,  by  dire  i.  observations,  the  views  of  Conrad  on 
the  Tertiary-Eocene  age  of  the  Tejon  group,  when  he  knows  well 
the  priority  of  my  observations  made  in  situ,  at  Fort  Tejon,  in  1875. 

But  moreover,  Dr.  White  asserts  that  it  has  been  demon- 
strated :  (1)  that  one  or  two  Mesozoic  types  of  Cephalopods  pass 
up  from  the  Chico  group  into  the  Tejon  ;  (2)  that  the  Chico-Tejon 
series  is  an  unbroken  series  of  strata ;  and  finally  (3)  that  the 
Miocene  strata  everywhere  rest  conformably  upon  the  Tejon  group. 
All  these  are  erroneous  suppositions  against  plain  facts.  No  Ceph- 
alopods have  ever  been  found  at  Fort  Tejon,  and  the  Ammonites 
jugalis,  described  by  Gabb  as  a  fossil  from  the  Martinez  group  near 
Monte  Diablo,  belongs  truly  to  the  Chico  group.  The  series  at 
Chico  creek  and  at  Fort  Tejon  are  both  broken,  and  the  complete 
series  do  not  exist  at  either  place  of  the  two  typical  localities ; 
Chico  creek  possessing  only  the  Chico  group,  and  Fort  Tejon  the 
Tejon  group. 

As  to  tlie  Miocene,  it  does  not  rest  comformably  at  the  Arroyo 
de  los  Alisos  near  Fort  Tejon,  upon  the  Tejon  group.  A  great 
break  occurred  there,  and  in  several  other  localities  of  California, 
at  the  end  of  the  deposits  of  the  Tejon  group  (Upper  Eocene  or 
Oligocene). 

The  Laramie  group,  according  to  special  and  narrowly  interpreted 


ISO 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


I:    .       I 

'       ! 


palaeontological  studies,  has  been  referred  to  the  Cretaceous  sj'stera, 
or  even  to  a  passage  or  transition  group  called  Post-cretaceous^ 
included  in  the  Mesozoic  (Secondary)  and  not  Tertiary  by  any 
means. 

The  name  ought  to  be  spelled  and  written  Laramee,  from  the 
French  name  la  ramee,  used  often  as  a  family  name ;  like  La- 
Jlamme,  Lapoire,  Labrosse,  Lasale,  Laroche,  Larochette,  Larochelle^ 
Lariviere,  Larive,  Lapointe,  Laplace,  Laferete,  etc.  The  spelling 
Laramie,  in  which  the  e  is  replaced  by  an  i,  is  a  corruption,  just 
like  the  spelling  of  Auhry  as  corrupted  into  Aubrey,  for  another 
group  of  American  strata  of  the  Carboniferous  system  in  Arizona. 

It  is  now  a  well  proved  and  accepted  fact  that  the  Fox  Hill 
group  represents  in  the  Missouri  basin  the  extreme  upper  part  of 
the  White  Chalk,  or  Danian  and  Craie  de  Maestrich.  It  is  a  ma- 
rine deposit,  500  feet  thick,  containing  a  quantity  of  character- 
ized Upper  Cretaceous  fossils. 

Above  it  and  with  a  geographical  distribution,  quite  distinct 
and  much  wider,  we  have  an  entirely  different  formation,  a  brack- 
ish-water deposit  of  more  than  3,000  feet,  sometimes  4,000  feet, 
thickness  of  strata,  containing  a  fauna  of  vertebratse,  a  special 
fauna  of  invertebrf.t&\  and  a  special  flora  subdivided  into  three  or 
even  four  florulae. 

The  invertebratse  faun:«  is  small  —  less  than  one  hundred  spe- 
cies —  entirely  of  a  brackish-water  character  and  is  closely  related 
to  a  similar  fauna  of  the  Eocene  of  the  Adriatic  provinces  of  Aus- 
tria. It  has  absolutely  nothing  of  a  Cretaceous  character,  while 
on  the  contrary  it  is  connected  by  several  common  species  with 
the  Eocene  and  Miocene  of  America. 

The  vertebratae  fauna  includes  genera  regarded  as  characteristic 
of  the  Cretaceous  and  also  of  the  Tertiary. 

The  flora  closely  resembles  the  Senonian  flora  as  it  does  both 
the  Eocene  and  the  Miocene  flora.  Tlie  apparition  of  many  forms 
entirely  Tertiary  solve  the  question  of  synchronism,  more  espec- 
ially when  we  consider  the  stratigraphy  above  the  youngest  Creta- 
ceous group. 

The  Laramee  group  represents  in  America,  tb.e  lower  part  of 
the  Eocene  or  Paleocene  (Calcaire  pisolitique,  calcaire  de  Rilly, 
Sables  de  Bracheux  et  d'Aix-la-Chapelle,  etc.) , 

As  to  regarding  such  an  important  member  of  the  Cretaceous 
system  younger  than  any  great  division  or  even  group  existing 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


51 


in  Europe,  as  is  the  tendency  among  some  geologists  and  palaeon- 
tologists, it  will  be  attended  by  serious  objections  without  any  ad- 
vantages. The  series  in  Europe  are  complete,  and  the  Larainee 
deposits  must  be  contemporaneous,  and  the  homotaxis  of  some 
part  of  the  European  great  divisions.  To  create  outside  of  the 
general  classification  and  nomenclature  another  index  of  geo- 
logical times,  invading  and  confusing  the  scale  arrived  at  by  long 
studies  and  plain  facts,  will  be  a  step  in  the  wrong  direction, 
which  will  weigh  heavily  on  the  future  progress  of  stratigraphy. 
It  is  not  only  a  question  of  names,  but  above  all  a  question  of  ex- 
actness and  clearness  in  historical  geology. 

That  a  sub-group  of  one  hundred  or  two  hundred  feet  at  most  may 
embarrass  clas-ificators  ;  and  that  it  will  be  prudent  not  to  refer  too 
hastily  such  a  sub-group  to  one  system  or  another  is  to  be  ex- 
pected everywhere  ;  and  such  cases  occur  as  well  in  Europe,  as  in 
America,  or  any  other  part  of  the  world.  But  it  is  very  different 
with  a  great  group  or  etage,  forming  an  important  factor  in  the  table 
of  strata.  Geological  age  and  time  must  prime  all  other  questions  ; 
and  the  chronology  must  be  made  out  and  parallelized  with  the 
standard  classification  and  nomenclature,  without  being  stopped  by 
imperfect  knowledge  of  palseontological  distribution  of  family  and 
genus  of  animals  and  plants.  The  uniformity  of  palreontological 
rules  and  laws,  as  stated  forty  years  ago  at  the  dawn  of  the  great 
researches  on  palaeontology,  cannot  any  longer  be  in  the  way  and 
delay  the  advance  of  our  studies ;  and  decisions  must  be  reached 
even  when  they  interfere  with  the  too  easy  dictations  of  those  wlio 
think  tliey  possess  in  the  drawers  of  their  collections  of  fossils  the 
keys  of  all  the  geologiciil  questions. 

The  affinities  of  a  few  forms  of  the  Laramee  group  with  Seno- 
nian  fossils  show  only  that  some  degenerate  Cretaceous  types  con- 
tinued to  exist  in  America  during  a  part  of  the  Laramee  time,  but 
the  appearance  of  a  great  number  of  new  types  which  developed 
fully  only  after  the  Laramee,  during  the  time  of  the  deposition  of 
the  Middle  and  Upper  Eocene  and  even  Miocene,  indicates  that  the 
Laramee  group  belongs  to  the  Tertiary.  On  one  side  we  have 
affinities  with  a  small  group  of  the  fourth  order  only,  the  Senonian  ; 
and,  on  the  other,  most  numerous  and  important  affinities  with  two 
great  systems  and  the  whole  series  of  the  Tertlar}',  that  is  to  say, 
with  divisions  of  the  second  order  and  even  of  the  first  order.  Pa- 
Itfiontologicall}',  it  settles  the  question  in  the  same  direction  and 
with  the  same  conclusion  that  the  great  change  between  the  marine 


m 


62 


AMERICAN  GEOLOGICAL 


and  brackish  for»natJon8,  and  the  different  geographical  distribu- 
tion, all  indicate  that  in  America,  as  well  as  in  Europe,  the  depos- 
its  at  the  end  of  the  Cretaceous  period  have  been  replaced  by 
well-marked  and  entirely  distinct  formations  indicating  a  new 
order  of  phenomena  in  the  distribution  of  terra  firma,  sea  and  land 
waters. 


j  I 

i 


T  ■ 


XIII.     Upper  Tertiary  or  Helvetian  System. 

The  Miocene  is  well  represented  in  Maryland,  Virginia  (York- 
town)  and  in  Carolina,  but  it  is  in  California  where  the  marine 
formation  is  most  developed  and  may  be  taken  as  typical  for  North 
America.  The  great  similarity  of  the  California  Miocene  and  Pli- 
ocene with  the  celebrated  Molasse  of  Switzerland  is  startling  and 
rare  at  such  a  great  distance — half  of  the  northern  hemisphere. 

Singular  to  say,  both  the  Geological  Survey  of  California  con- 
ducted by  J.  D.  Whitney  and  the  United  States  Geological  Survey 
conducted  by  G.  F.  Becker,  have  not  only  completely  failed  to  see 
that  beautiful  lithological  coincidence,  but  Mr.  G.  F.  Becker  even 
protests  against  it :  "that  any  degree  of  similarity  between  the  rocks 
of  California  and  those  of  Switzerland  should  properly  be  consid- 
ered as  even  tending  to  prove  the  age  of  eitlier"  {Notes  on  the  Strati- 
graphy of  California  in  Bulletin  U.  S.  Geol.  Surv.y  No.  19,  p.  11, 
Washington,  1885),  putting  aside  completely  the  question  of  com- 
parative lithology,  which  he  "cannot  conceive."  As  the  palseonto- 
logical  evidence  is,  if  possible,  even  more  striking,  we  do  not  see 
on  what  principles  those  surveys  have  been  or  are  conducted  ;  un- 
til we  remember  that  paleontology  even  more  than  litliology,  is  a 
sealed  book  to  both  Messrs.  Whitney  and  Becker. 

California  is  the  best  field  in  which  to  study  the  marine  Tertiary 
series  in  North  America.  Until  now,  no  observer,  well  posted  upo;> 
the  question,  has  taken  the  matter  in  hand  ;  and  it  is  a  matter  of  re- 
gret for  the  progress  of  American  geology  that  a  competent  person 
has  not  j'et  been  chosen  for  the  work. 

The  Pliocene  exists  round  Los  Angeles  and  other  localities  in 
California.  It  is  only  the  upper  group  of  the  superior  Tertiary 
and  is  mainly  a  part  of  the  great  Miocene  formation,  occupying  a 
position  relatively  to  it,  somewhat  analogous  to  tlie  Oligocene  in 
regard  to  the  Eocene.  Fresh-water  Miocene  and  Pliocene  forma- 
tions exist  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  in  Oregon.  Mr.  O.  C. 
Marsh  has  recognized  five  faunas  and  as  many  groups,  and  Mr.  E. 
Cope  three  groups  and  six  faunas.    It  was  from  the  Miocene  of  Ne- 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


53 


braska  tliat  Dr.  Joseph  Lei  Jy  obtained  the  materials  for  his  first  and 
justly  celebrated  great  work  on  the  vertebrata  of  North  America, 
entitled  The  ancient  fauna  of  Nebraska,  4'",  Washington,  1853. 
Dr.  John  Elvans  visited  and  explored  the  Bad  Lands  of  Nebraska 
during  1849  and  brought  with  him  the  main  part  of  the  specimens 
used  by  Dr.  Leidy. 

XIV.  Quaternary  and  Recent  or  Modern  Series. 

This  series  is  divided  into  two  sj'stems  or  divisions  of  the  sec- 
ond order.  The  inferior  embraces  all  the  old  Quaternary  or  drift 
divisions,  so  well  developed  in  America :  ^1)  as  alluvial  drift  along 
the  Mississippi  river  basin,  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  val- 
leys, the  Colorado  river,  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte ;  (2)  as  cave 
deposits  and  Loess  ;  and  (3)  as  glacial  deposits  in  all  the  northern 
part  of  the  eastern  United  States  and  Canada,  in  the  whole  area 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  region,  and  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  Cas- 
cade range. 

The  superior  system,  or  actual  deposits,  is  made  by  rivers,  lakes, 
seas,  delta,  glaciers,  landslides,  sandy  dunes,  etc.,  etc. 


Glacial  Epoch. 
America  is  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  the  world  for  the 
extension  of  old  glaciers.     Having  been  explored  by  Louis  Agas- 
siz,  the  father  of  the  glacial  epoch, ^  the  glacial  phenomenon  has 

*  Dr.  Otto  Vogel,  Mr.  James  D.  Dana  and  a  few  others  having  lately  called  In  ques- 
tion the  right  of  priority  of  Agaesiz,  it  is  necessary  and  jus  to  dispose  of  such  errone- 
ous notions, 

Karl  Friedrich  Schimper  has  only  the  merit  of  first  coining  and  using  the  word  JUit- 
zeit  (glacial  epoch),  in  a  small  bit  of  half-humorous  and  half-scientiflc  poetry,  printed 
and  distributed  at  Ncuchatel  Feb.  15, 1837,  when  on  a  visit  at  the  house  of  Agassiz.  on 
tlie  occasion  of  his  (Schimper's)  birtliday.  A  few  montlis  later,  Sohimper  wrote  a  letter 
to  Agassiz,  from  the  house  of  de  Charpentier  at  Bex,  wliich  was  printed  by  AgasEiz  un* 
der  the  title:  Ueber  die  Eiseeit,  in  tlie  "Actes  de  la  Soci^t4  helv^tique  des  Sciences 
naturelles,"  pp.  SS-'Jl,  after  Agassiz's  -elebrated  Discours  de  Neuchatel,  le  24  Juillet, 
1837.  Beside^,  Agassiz  in  that  discourse  declares  most  fi-ankly  that  the  explanation 
given  by  him  "est  le  resultat  de  la  combinaison  de  mes  id^es  et  de  celles  de  M.  Schim- 
per." 

That  is  all  Schimper's  collaboration  to  the  glacial  epoch.  He  never  studied  carefully 
the  glaciers,  nor  did  ho  extend  the  glacial  theory  by  direct  observations  in  any  part  of 
the  world  except  in  the  Swartzwald  and  Bavaria.  His  coming  across  a  surface  of  Ju- 
rassic limestone  polished  and  striated  at  Landeron  near  Neuchatel,  Dec.  19, 1836,  was 
nothing  more  than  a  new  locality  added  to  many  others  of  the  Jura  borders,  already 
well  known  to  Agassiz,  de  Charpentier  and  de  Montmollin. 

As  to  Arnold  Guyot  anticipating  a  number  of  Agassis'  most  important  conclusions  on 
glaciers,  as  claimed  by  Mr.  Dana,  it  is  against  all  the  well-known  dates  of  Agassiz'  ex- 
plorations and  publications;  and  I  have  sufficiently  refuted,  with  all  details  and  facts, 
such  unfounded  statements,  in  my  letter  Olaciera  and  Olacialists,  published  in  '-Science," 
July  23,  vol.  VIII,  pp.  7a-aO,  New  York,  1886. 


54 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


1. 


Si 


been  compared  in  all  its  grand  features  and  details  with  the  clas- 
sical  ground  and  birthplace  of  the  Theorie  glaciaire  in  the  basin  of 
the  Rhone.  Nowhere  in  Europe,  even  in  Scandinavia  or  the  Alps, 
are  there  such  a  fine  development  and  beautiful  remains  of  glacial 
deposits  and  glacial  works. 

In  Canada,  New  England,  New  York  and  the  northern  states 
comprising  all  the  Great  Lakes,  parts  of  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  In- 
diana, Illinois,  Missouri,  Nebraska,  Dakota,  an  immense  sheet  of 
ice  (une  calotte  de  glace)  covered  all,  giving  almost  one  unbroken 
mass  of  ice  similar  to  the  one  now  covering  Greenland,  but  on  a 
much  grander  scale.  That  gigantic  and  enormous  glacier  has  left 
its  "Terminal  Moraine"  on  a  line,  which  follows  more  or  less  the 
40th  parallel,  extending  from  the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  upper  Mis- 
souri {Preliminary  paper  of  the  Terminal  Moraine  of  the  second  gla- 
cial epoch,  by  T.  C.  Cliamberlain,  in  Third  Anri.  Rep.  U.  S.  Oeol. 
Surv.,  p.  295  and  Plate  xxviii,  Washington,  1883  ;  and  also  The 
Glacial  boundary  in  Ohio^  Indiana,  and  Kentucky,  by  G.  F.  Wright, 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  1884).  In  the  Rocky  Mountains,  Wasatch  Moun- 
tains, and  the  Humboldt  Sierras  great  glaciers  have  existed  and 
descended  from  all  the  great  peaks  into  the  valleys,  leaving  every- 
where their  marks  of  boulders,  scratched  rocks  {Roches  strikes  et 
moutonnees)  and  moraines.  At  Manitou  and  round  Colorado  City 
at  the  foot  of  Pike  Peak,  the  traces  of  old  glaciers  are  perfect  and 
as  beautiful  as  in  Valais  (Switzerland). 

The  Sierra  Nevada  is  even  more  prolific  in  all  the  phenomena 
connected  with  the  glacial  epoch ;  the  great  mass  of  auriferous 
gravels,  with  few  exceptions,  being  remains  of  old  glacier  deposits 
of  the  Quaternary  period. 

Singularly  enough,  the  geologist,  recommended  by  Agassiz  to  di- 
rect tlje  Geological  Survey  of  California,  has  failed  completely  to 
recognize  not  only  the  true  age  of  the  Quaternary  glacial  deposits 
of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  which  he  has  assigned  to  the  Tertiary  (Eo- 
cene, Miocene  and  Pliocene),  but  has  gone  so  far  astray  as  to  take 
the  Sierra  Nevada  for  a  basis  to  deny  the  existence  of  the  "Ice 
age,"  the  greatest  discovery  of  Agassiz  ! 

To  make  the  matter  worse,  Mr.  J.  D.  Whitney  has  published  his 
paradoxical  and  backward  paper,  in  the  quarto-serials  founded  by 
Louis  Agassiz  at  his  Museum ;  and  in  the  same  volume  vii,  which 
contains  the  last  posthumous  memoir  of  Agassiz.  The  title  is:  The 
climatic  changes  of  later  geological  times;  a  discussion  based  on 
observations  made  in  the  Cordilleras  of  North  America^  by  J.  D. 


n. 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATDRU. 


55 


Whitney — a  controversial  dissercation  out  of  date  and  out  of  place. 
By  out  of  date,  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  value  of  the  paper 
would  have  been  improved  if  it  had  been  published  fifty  years  ago ; 
but  only  that  it  would  have  been  then  somewhat  excusable,  just  as 
the  anti-glacialist  memoirs  of  Lecoq,  Durocher,  De  Luc,  Godefroy 
and  Frapolli  are. 

As  usual,  Mr.  James  D.  Dana,  with  his  pen  ever  ready  to  sus- 
tain all  the  errors  and  prevent  the  progress  of  American  geology, 
has  taken  up  the  same  cause,  attacking  me  most  violently  and  er- 
roneously, because  I  have  quoted  only  very  slightly  the  obnoxious 
memoir,  in  a  carefully  written  and  very  exact  paper  on  the  Glaciers 
and  Olacialists,  published  July  23, 1886,  in  "Science,"  vol.  viii,  p. 
76,  New  York.  In  a  letter  to  "Science,"  vol.  viii,  p.  162,  August 
20,  1886,  Mr.  J.  D.  Dana  declares  most  emphatically  that  the 
Memoirs  of  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  were  not  founded 
by  Louis  Agassiz,  and  that  Mr.  Whitney,  although  he  "  opposes 
Agassiz,  has  not  a  word  of  disparagement  for  Agassiz  and  gives 
no  just  cause  of  personal  complaint," — two  assertions  audaciously 
incorrect,  which  show  that  Mr.  Dana  is  as  low  in  the  scale  of  geo- 
logical critics  as  he  is  as  an  observer  in  historical  geology  by  his 
incompetency  during  forty-four  years  to  recognize  the  Taconic* 

Agassiz  received  a  first  grant  of  ten  thousand  dollars  from  the 
legislature  of  Massachusetts  in  1863  for  the  publication  of  those 
memoirs,  an  act  which  must  seem  unparalleled  and  most  extraordi- 
nary to  any  one  who  knows  how  parsimonious  and  extremely  care- 
ful of  the  public  purse  the  Massachusetts  legislatures  are.  No  one 
but  Agassiz,  and  even  no  corporation,  however  powerful  and  in- 
fluential, would  have  succeeded  in  getting  money  from  the  General 
Court  and  the  Governor  of  Massachusetts  for  such  special  purpose 
as  the  publication  of  purely  scientific  memoirs,  and  nothing  shows 
so  well  the  great  popularity  and  immense  attractive  power  exercised 
by  Agassiz,  as  the  fact  that,  in  the  middle  of  the  great  civil  war, 
when  all  the  resources  of  Massachusetts  were  bent  to  support  her 
armies  in  the  field,  he  was  able  to  obtain  a  considerable  sum  of 
money  to  print  the  transactions  of  his  museum.     As  to  the  pro- 

>  Whatever  may  bo  Mr.  Dana'a  talents  and  knowledge  as  a  niineralogist  and  a  zoolo. 
gist,  his  intervention  in  liistoricul  geology  has  been  most  uni'oi  tunato,  both  as  an  ob- 
server and  as  a  critic.  Uis  elementary  boolis  have  disseminated  false  and  erroneous 
notions  on  almost  all  questions  of  American  stratigraphy ;  and  unc'.er  an  appearance  of 
competency,  without  any  solid  base  to  rest  upon,  he  has  contributed  largely  to  prevent 
the  acceptance  of  the  trutli. 


56 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


Sir 


priety,  on  Mr.  Whitney's  part,  of  publishing  in  memoirs,  founded 
by  Louis  Agassiz,!  a  negation  of  tlie  best  and  most  important  dis- 
covery ever  made  by  tluit  great  naturalist,  and  to  ignore  him  as 
being  the  discoverer  of  the  existence  of  ancient  glac'evs  in  the 
Britislj  dominions,  in  New  England  and  New  York,  in  Brazil,  in 
the  straits  of  Magellan  and  in  Cliili,  is,  to  say  the  least,  most  un- 
grateful and  unjust.  And  the  saying  of  Mr.  Dana,  that  my  remark 
"is  essentially  groundless,"  is  another  bold  attempt  to  depiiVe  a 
man  of  genius  of  the  full  share  of  his  splendid  discoveries. 

Et'ery body  knows  well  that  Louis  Agassiz  founded  the  two  pub- 
lications of  his  IViuseum — Bulletin  and  Transactions  {Memoirs) — 
as  special  contributions  to  the  progress  of  natural  history  in  the 
United  States  and  not  for  its  retardation.  It  is  hard  for  his 
memory  and  such  a  noble  example,  that  a  "  j' long  and  diffuse 
work  has  been  publislied  by  the  man  who  succeeded  him  in  his 
chair  of  geology  at  Harvard  University  which,  if  accepted  as  true 
and  sufficiently  proved,^  will  not  only  hinder  the  advancement  of 
a  science  so  dear  to  Agassiz,  but  carry  that  great  question  of  the 
"  Ice  age  "  more  than  fifty  year?  backward,  as  it  was  before  the 
justly  celebrated  Discours  prouonce  a  Neuchatel  in  1837,  by  Agas- 
siz before  the  Helvetic  Naturalist  Society  as  its  president.  What 
shall  we  say  of  the  work  of  a  man,  who  pretends  to  deny  the 
"  glacial  epoch  "  and  the  "  glacial  doctrine,"  who  not  only  did  not 
give  any  credit  to  Agassiz  for  his  superb  work  at  the  glacier  of  the 
Aar,  and  his  discoveries  of  old  glaciers  in  the  United  Kingdom  of 
England  and  Ireland,  and  in  North  and  South  America,  but  passes 
over  them  as  if  Agassiz  had  done  nothing  on  the  subject?  Is 
there  anything  more  contemptible?  Even  the  name  of  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  "  Ice  age  "  is  not  given  once  in  Whitney's  large 


>  Agassiz  did  not  give  at  first  a  general  title  to  his  4to  publications,  using  only  as  a 
anbtit.  e  ''Illustrated  Catalogue."  But  in  his  Annual  Report  of  ATuseum  Compar.  Zool, 
for  1867,  he  has  employed  at  p.  7,  first  the  name  transactions  in  a  general  way,  and  a 
few  lines  farther  on  as  a  special  title  with  a  great  majuscule  T,  as  the  definite  title: 
Transactions  of  the  Musetim  of  Comparative  Zoology.  Three  years  after  his  death  the 
word  Transactions  was  abandoned  an^  replaced  by  Memoiri. 

*  Students,  assistants  of  Museums  and  Surveys,  and  even  naturalists  of  some  repu- 
tation and  renown  have  been  deceived  and  led  astray  by  Mr.  Whitney.  Happily  all 
the  practical  geologists,  more  especially  those  interested  in  the  glaciers  and  glacial 
theory,  have  regarded  that  singular  paper  as  the  most  retrograde,  incomplete  and  in- 
competent geological  memoir  published  in  America  during  the  last  forty  years.  The 
omission  or  more  than  two-thirds  of  the  discoveries  of  old  glaciers  in  the  world,  in- 
cluding those  made  by  Louis  Agassiz  in  Europe  and  in  America,  shows  au  almost  total 
ignorance  of  the  subject. 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


57 


quarto  volume.  No  excuse  can  be  given  for  such  an  imposition 
on  the  geology  of  America,  and  on  that  breach  of  the  most  ele- 
mentary uourtesy  and  dignity  due  to  Louis  Agassiz. 


: 


Living  Glacikrs. 

Actual  glaciers,  although  very  small  in  comparison  with  what 
they  were  at  the  beginning  of  the  Modern  series  during  the  Qua- 
ternary system,  exist  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  Great  Basin, 
the  Sierra  Nevada,  Mount  Shasta,  the  Cascade  Range,  besides 
British  Columbia  and  Alaska. 

Mr.  W.  H.  Holmes,  U.  S.  Geological  &urvey,  has  found  active 
glaciers  in  the  Wind  River  and  Tetons  ranges  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. Others  have  been  signalized  since  in  the  Flathead  region, 
the  Great  Basin  and  northern  Colorado.  In  the  Sierra  Nevada, 
Mr.  J.  Muir,  as  fur  back  as  1872,  described  the  "  living  glaciers 
of  California."  Mr.  1.  C.  Russell  showed  "  that  nine  glaciers  now 
exist  within  the  southern  rim  of  the  Mono  Lake  drainage  basin  ;" 
and  he  adds  that  a  larger  number  are  to  be  found  round  Maclure, 
Lyell  and  Ritter  peaks  ("  Existing  glaciers  of  the  United  States" 
in  Fifth  Ann.  Rep.  U.  S.  Geol.  Surv.,  p.  315,  Washington,  1885). 

The  late  director  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  California,  Mr. 
Whitney,  not  only  did  not  find  any  glaciers  in  the  Sierra  Nevada,^ 
but  went  so  far  as  tf^  deny  their  exiotence,  even  ten  years  after 
their  descriptions  by  Messrs.  Muir  and  Leconte.  His  former  as- 
sistant, Mr.  Clarence  King,  afterward  geologist-in-charge  of  the 
fortieth-parallel  explorations,  has  joined  his  protest  against  "  the 
absurdity  of  applying  the  word  glacier  to  a  snow  mass  which  ap- 
pears and  reaj  pears  from  year  to  yeu,r "  speaking  also  of  "  Mr. 
Muir's  vagarie;  "  (Explor.  fortieth  Parallel,  vol.  i,  p.  478,  4*°, 
Washingion,  1  «78). 

1  Nevada  in  Spanish,  Nivi  in  French,  represent  a  fictitious  form  nivatus,  fi-om  nix, 
nivis,  snow.,  which  is  always  applied  by  the  Spaniards  to  mountains  covered  with  per- 
petuai  snow  or  glaciers.  In  South  America,  fVom  the  Sierra  Nevada  dc  Santa  Marttia, 
in  the  northern  part  of  Colombia,  to  Chiii,  we  have  numerous  Sierra  Nevada  or  oniy 
Nevada.  The  Sierra  Nevada  of  Spain  (Grenada),  with  its  well  known  glaciers,  is 
celebrated  since  the  time  of  the  Romans  and  the  Moors.  Consequently  the  name  Sierra 
Nevada  means  a  range  of  mountains  with  glaciers  on  their  highest  part.  If  Messrs.  J. 
D.  Whitney  and  C.  King  were  conversant  with  Spanish  physical  geography,  they  would 
have  reflected  and  probably  paused  before  committing  themselves  to  the  flat  denial  of 
the  existence  of  living  glaciers  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  of  California,  the  very  name  of  it 
meaning  a  range  of  mountains  with  glaciers. 


■ 


08 


AMERICAN  OEOLOOIOAL 


A  ^ 


Mr.  G.  Thompson,  of  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  made  a  top- 
ographical Hurvey  of  the  region  about  Mount  Shasta  in  1883. 
His  map  is  published  by  Mr.  Russell  in  the  Fifth  Ann.  Eejyort,  op- 
posite p.  330,  plate  xliv.  About  a  dozen  glaciers  exist ;  live  of 
which  are  of  good  size,  being  several  miles  in  length.  Any  one 
who  has  been  in  California  and  has  previously  seen  eitiier  any 
portion  of  the  Alps,  or  the  p]tna,  knows  well  enough,  even  in  look- 
ing at  Mount  Shasta  from  Marysville  and  all  over  the  Sacramento 
valley,  that  it  was  covered  with  perpetual  snow  and  consequently 
with  glaciers.  But  the  Geological  Survey  of  California  knows  bet- 
ter. In  September,  1862,  the  Director,  Mr.  J.  D.  Whitney,  accom- 
panied by  his  two  assistants,  Messrs.  W.  H.  Brewer  and  Clarence 
King,  all  three  claiming  to  be  old  travellers  in  the  Alps  of  Swit- 
zerland and  the  Tyrol,  and  good  experts  on  the  glaciers,  ascended 
Mount  Shasta.  T  je  party  had  "considerable  difficulty  in  crossing 
over  a  wide  space  on  which  the  snow,  almost  icy  in  its  texture  was 
laid  in  sharp  ridges"  (Oeol.  Surv.  of  California,  Geology,  vol.  i, 
p.  340,  1865).  Notwithstanding  these  snow  "difficulties," Mr.Whit- 
ney  and  his  companions  did  not  discover  any  glacier !  It  was  not 
until  eight  years  later  that  one  of  that  singular  party  of  non-dis- 
coverers of  glaciers,  Mr.  C.  King,  having  become  geologist-in- 
charge  of  the  exploration  of  the  40th  parallel,  and  accompanied  by 
several  members  of  his  survej',  one  of  whom  was  better  qualified 
than  himself  in  his  knowledge  of  the  Alpine  glaciers,  found  at  last 
three  glaciers.  As  a  matter  of  course,  to  excuse  Messrs.  Whitney 
and  Brewer,  as  well  as  himself  for  their  failure  of  1862,  Mr.  King 
explains  "  why  able  scientific  observers  like  Professor  Whitney'' 
and  his  party  should  have  scaled  the  mountain  without  discovering 
their  existence"  {Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  3rd  series,  vol.  i,  p.  157, 1871). 

Such  a  feat  was  not  to  be  left  uncommemorated,  and  Mr.  Thomp- 
son very  wittily  and  most  appropriately  named  the  longest  and  first 
magnitude  glacier  of  Mount  Shasta,  3,800  yards  in  length,  and 
covering  an  area  of  1,900,000  square  yards,  at  an  elevation  of  9,500 
feet  above  the  sea,  Whitney  glacier^  "in  honor  of  the  former  State 
Geologist  of  California"(Ft/]!/i  Ann.  Rep.  U.  S.  Geol.  Surv.,  p.  333) . 
A  well  deserved  tribute  due  to  the  man  who  has  declared  that  there 
were  no  actual  glaciers  on  Mount  Shasta,  nor  in  the  Sierra  Neva- 
da ;  and  that  the  "glacial  epoch"  was  only  a  myth,  invented  to  ex- 
plain everything  in  geology. 


I 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


59 


In  the  Cascade  Mountains,  glaciers  exist  at  Mounts  Rainlci, 
Hood,  Baiter,  Jefferson,  the  Three  Sisters,  etc.  Also  splendid  and 
numerous  Alpine  glaciers  cover  a  part  of  Alaska. 


S 


w 


XV.    Explanation  of  the  Tabular  view  op  American  Classi- 
fication AND  Nomenclature. 

The  division  in  eight  grand  epochs,  or  series  of  the  first  order,  is 
better  balanced  and  gives  a  more  just  view  of  practical  geology, 
than  the  old  division  into  four  classes :  Primary,  Transition,  Sec- 
O'.idKry  and  Tertiary  ;  or  Azoic,  Paleeozoic,  Mesozoic  and  Cenozoic  ; 
or  only  into  three  great  classes :  Azoic,  Palueozoic  and  Neozoic. 
Such  divisions  are  not  veil  balanced,  and  their  chronology  was  not 
established  with  a  sufficient  knowledge  of  the  history  of  the  earth. 
Their  use  has  been  confined  to  museums  and  theorists  ;  but  for  prac- 
tical purposes,  when  in  the  field,  or  at  work  at  a  general  geological 
map  of  a  moderate  scale,  they  are  too  unequal,  too  great — except 
the  Tertiary — to  be  of  any  help  in  survej'ing,  mapping  and  classi- 
fying the  rocks  met  with.  They  do  not  correspond  any  longer  to 
the  state  of  our  knowledge.  Up  to  forty  years  ago  it  was  very 
well  to  use  such  great  Vernerian  epochs  ;  but  since  the  disentangle- 
ment of  the  older  fossiliferous  rocks,  the  extension  all  over  Europe 
America  and  a  part  of  Asia,  Africa  and  Australia,  of  the  different 
systems  of  strata  now  well  understood  and  sufficiently  known,  it 
is  rather  out  of  our  time  to  maintain  so  incongruous  and  unbalanced 
a  classification. 

I  have  previously  in  the  Explication  d'une  seconde  edition  de  la 
carte  geologique  de  la  Terre,  4'°,  Zurich,  1875,  used  and  explained 
the  division  in  eight  series,  as  better  qualified  to  unite  and  conden- 
sate the  different  great  geological  facts  as  they  truly  exist  in  na- 
ture. 

The  great  "New  York  series"  is  due  entirely  to  Messrs.  Emmons, 
Vanuxem  and  Co-rad.  Their  two  other  associates  in  the  New 
York  Survey,  Messis.  ?'ather  and  Hall,  not  only  did  nothing  to 
elucidate  the  Suratigraphical  classification  ;  but,  on  the  contrary, 
they  have  tried  very  hard,  during  forty  years,  to  entangle  and  nul- 
lify the  good  observations  made  by  the  other  members  of  the  sur- 
vej'.  And  to  refer,  as  is  sometimes  the  custom  among  foreign  and 
even  some  American  geologists,  the  "New  York  series"  to  Mr. 
James  Hall,  as  its  author,  is  not  only  a  gross  error,  but  a  great 


60 


AMERICAN   OKOLOOICAL 


injustice  to  Emmons,  Vanuxcra  and  Conrad,  which  oii<^ht  to  be 
checlted  by  all  means,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  Since  1868,  in  my 
Geology  of  North  America^  chapter  ix,  "  a  Synopsis  of  the  History 
of  the  progress  and  discoveries  of  Geology  in  Nortlj  America,"  p. 
99,  4*",  Zurich,  I  have  striven  to  expose  tlie  truth,  and  Billings  en« 
dorsed  my  efforts  in  a  letter  which  I  have  pul)lished  in  my  paper : 
*'  The  Taconic  system  and  its  position  in  stratigruphic  geology," 
p.  185  {Proceed.  Amer.  Acad.  Arts  and  Sciences,  vol.  xii,  Cam- 
bridge, 1885).  Now  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  reference  of  the 
"New  York  series"  to  Mr.  James  Hall  will  cease  and  be  replaced 
by  its  true  discoverers,  Emmons,  Vanuxera  and  Conrad. 

As  subdivisions  of  the  second  order,  I  have  given  sixteen  systems 
or  terrains,  all  recognizable  easily  at  first  sight  by  any  competent 
geologist  all  the  world  over.  They  exist  in  North  America,  beau- 
tifully developed,  from  Newfoundland  to  California. 

In  the  third  order,  the  divisi.  ns  or  etages  are  more  numerous 
and  consequently  limited  in  their  geographical  extension.  The 
Taconic  series  contains  at  least  eight  divisions,  the  New  York  se- 
ries, nine  divisions,  etc.,  etc.  It  is  a  little  difficult  to  find  their 
Iiomotaxial  equivalents  with  the  divisions  of  the  same  order  in 
Europe,  Asia  and  Australia.  Some  are,  however,  remarkably  iden- 
tical, palceontologically  as  well  as  lithologically  and  strutigraphi- 
cally,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  The  contemporaneousness  is 
sometimes  very  striking  and  astonishing. 

The  divisions  of  the  fourth  order,  called  groups  or  sub-etages 
are  all  special  and  confined  to  one-quarter,  or  to  one-third  at  most, 
of  the  United  States  and  Canada  and  often  even  much  less.  Their 
equivalents  outside  of  America  are  more  or  less  doubtful  and  never 
to  be  entirely  relied  upon.  Generally,  a  group  or  sub-kage  is 
limited  to  a  great  physical  geographical  division  such  as  the  Mis- 
souri basin,  the  Great  Basin,  the  AUeghanies,  the  Great  Lakes, 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  the  Atlantic  coast,  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  the 
Pacific  coast,  etc. 

I  have  not  put  all  the  groups  existing  and  already  recognized 
in  North  America  iu  the  "  Tabular  View,"  because  a  great  deal 
remains  to  be  done  in  more  than  half  of  the  country  before  con- 
structing such  a  table  with  anything  like  permanency.  Special 
monographs  for  each  system  are  wanted  in  many  cases  before 
fixing  the  groups. 

The  divisions  of  the  fifth  order,  called  beds  or  couches^  or  assises^ 


; 


i-Tl 


OLA891KICATION    AND    NOMENCLATURE. 


di 


. 


i^  ti 


or  strata,  or  hand,  or  zone,  or  .section,  ftlwftys  limited  to  n  part  only 
of  ti  grojit  geographical  division  and  entirely  local,  vary  accord- 
ing to  places  in  regard  to  their  importance  and  stratigraphical 
values.  Some  are  confined  to  a  few  square  miles  and  even  one  or 
two  quarries  or  sections.  In  the  "Tabular  View"  I  have  indicat- 
ed very  slightly  in  a  special  column  tliat  fifth  order,  because  each 
part  of  the  country  and  almost  each  state  or  province  need  such 
special  subdivisions,  often  entirely  limited  to  each  one. 

In  order  to  show  what  they  are,  I  have  written  on  the  "Tabular 
View"  two  or  three  exam[)les  only.  In  the  very  narrow  St  John 
basin  in  New  Brunswick,  Mr.  G.  F.  Matthew,  who  has  worked  out 
so  well  the  St.  John  formation  of  the  Middle  Taconic,  gives  for  the 
succession  of  members,  first,  five  groups  or  sub-etages,  numbered  1, 
2, 3,  4  and  5  ;  and  each  group  is  8ul)divided  into  belts  called  by  him 
"bands"  or  "zones,"  or  "sections."  For  instance.  No.  1  is  divided 
into  bands  a,  b,  c  and  d,  each  one  characterized  by  special  fossils 
and  a  special  lithology. 

In  Texas  Mr.  II.  T.  Ilill  has  lately  shown  that  the  Neocomlan 
can  be  divided  into  two  groups  or  sub-etuges,  called  "Lower  or 
Comanche  Peak  Division,"  also  called  afterward  "Fredericksburg 
Division,"  and  "Upper  or  Washita  Division;"  and  then  in  each 
of  those  groups  he  gives  subdivisions  in  beds,  such  as  "Hippurites 
limestone,"  etc.  In  the  tabular  view,  I  have  numbered  the  four 
beds  of  the  Comanche  Peak  group.  In  New  York,  I  have  also 
numbered  the  five  beds  or  the  subdivisions  of  the  Lower  Ilelderberg. 

I  have  not  indicated  in  the  tabular  view  any  groups  or  division 
of  the  fourth  order  for  the  Lower  Taconic,  the  Upper  Carbonifer- 
ous or  Coal  Measures,  the  Dyas,  Trias,  Jura  and  Upi)er  Tertiary, 
because  the  study  of  these  strata  has  not  yet  been  carried  out  with 
sufHcient  details.  However,  the  existence  of  the  Rhetic,  Sinemu- 
rian  and  Purbeckian  indicated  in  the  American  Trias  and  Jura, 
shows  already  that  important  general  groups  may  be  recognized 
and  created  in  those  systems. 


SyNCHUONISM   AND    HoMOTAXIS. 

The  synchronism  and  homotaxis  of  the.  divisions  of  the  second 
order  or  systems,  for  the  whole  northern  hemisphere,  can  be  easily 
established,  only  the  work  should  be  done  by  practical  geologists 
made  well  acquainted  by  studies  in  the  field,  not  only  with  a  more 
or  less  extensive  country,  but  also  with  vast  regions  of  the  Old 


62 


AMKKICAN   OKULOGICAL 


and  Now  World  ;  nn  iicquiiement  vciy  seldom  attained,  owing  to 
the  didlciilties  to  l)e  overcome. 

Often  a  geologist,  nfler  u  tolerably'  good  study  of  a  stnto,  or  two 
or  three  states  and  territories  of  the  United  States,  thinks  that  he 
can  synchronize  easily  two  or  three  systems  of  strata,  not  only  all 
over  North  America,  but  also  with  Kin'o[)e.  Not  knowing  practi- 
cally the  geology  of  the  greatest  |)art  of  North  America,  and  being 
totally  ignorant  of  the  geology  of  Kurope,  except  what  he  can  learn 
through  a  Manual  of  Omlngy  or  even  special  memoirs  published 
on  the  question,  he  is  inclined  to  generalize  and  give  opinions  which 
are  always  more  or  less  erroneous  and  superllcial.  But  even  more  : 
some  geologists  go  to  Europe,  visit  collections  in  the  great  mu- 
seums, and  even  go  a  little  in  the  field,  and  after  three,  four  or 
twelve  months  of  travel,  believe  that  they  know  sufficiently  the 
geology  of  Europe  to  make  good  synchronism  between  American 
and  European  formations.  And,  vice  versa,  for  European  geolo- 
gists visiting  America.  Such  observers  have  oidy  a  very  imperfect 
knowledge,  and  are  almost  sure  to  make  great  mistakes;  for  it  is 
not  one  or  two  months,  or  even  one  or  two  years,  which  are  re- 
quired for  obtaining  a  pretty  good  practical  acquaintance  with 
European  and  American  geology,  but  at  least  five,  ten  and  even 
fifteen  years  passed  in  practical  work  on  eacli  continent.  Even 
that  is  not  enough  to  know  well  and  be  able  to  handle  skilfully 
all  the  questions  of  homotaxis,  but  only  some  of  them  ;  for  the 
geological  systems  are  too  numerous  and  too  complicated  to  be 
well  studied  by  a  single  geolog'  t. 

It  is  very  easy  and  too  common  to  speak  at  random  either  of 
the  synchronism  of  the  different  systems  between  America  and 
Europe,  or  of  the  impossibility  of  doing  it,  saying;  "a  system 
which  is  universal  is  artificial."  Facts,  practical  facts  well  ob- 
served in  the  field,  are  what  is  wanted  ;  and  any  one  who  has  passed 
his  life  in  practical  work,  will  always  say,  that  the  repetition  of 
almost  identical,  or  at  least  very  similar  phenomena  in  every  de- 
partment of  which  geological  science  is  composed,  is  not  only  of 
common  occurrence,  but  the  rule  all  the  world  over.  The  differ- 
ences only  strike  the  mind  of  the  superficial  geologists;  similari- 
ties, on  the  contrary,  are  taken  eagerly  and  with  all  their  true 
meaning,  usefulness  and  generalities  by  the  specialists. 

Mr.  G.  K.  Gilbert  in  a  paper  on  "Tlie  work  of  the  International 
Congress  of  Geologists"  {Amer.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci.  at  New  York, 


.'Si 


CLASSIFICATION    AND   NOMENOLATURK. 


63 


iV 


Aiijr.  10,  18H7,  Salem,  1887),  wliich  contiiins  8om«  good  ndvlce  nnd 
i8  H  oointiKMulalilu  utlbrt  to  put  {{cologistH  on  tlicii*  guard  against 
aiithoiitalive  dictation  and  the  tyranny  of  a  too  uniform  taxonomy, 
spealis  of  "tlio  fallacy  of  a  world-wide  unity  of  geologic  KyHtems  ;" 
and  sayH  aluo  that,  ^^there  does  not  exist  a  world-wide  Hystcm  nor 
a  world-wide  group,  but  every  Bystem  and  every  group  is  local." 

As  the  author  of  the  "Geological  Map  of  the  World"  I  have  to 
any  a  few  words.  Not  ordy  the  systems  or  divisions  of  the  sec- 
ond order  are  easily  distinguisliahle  in  every  part  of  the  northern 
hemisphere;  but  it  is  even  not  difllcult  to  work  them  out  in  the 
southern  hemisphere,  although  the  similarities  are  a  little  less  strik- 
ing. 1  must  say,  that  the  obscurities  and  certain  confusions  are 
duo  more  to  the  inal)ility  of  the  observers,  than  to  the  facts  which 
exist  in  the  Held  ;  facts,  which  require  only  to  be  properly  made  out 
by  good  practical  geologists,  as  it  lias  been  proved  again  and  again 
in  South  America,  southern  Africa,  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 

That  the  elages  or  divisions  of  the  third  order  are  local  is  very 
true,  as  1  have  said  before,  but  I  cannot  refrain  from  saying  that 
there  are  a  few  even  of  them  which  are  also  almost  world-wide  ;  for 
instance  the  Keuper,  the  Lias,  the  Neocomian,  and  very  likely 
others. 

Mr.  Gill)ert  "insists  that  a  system  which  is  universal  is  artifi- 
cial." ....  "Take  for  example  the  Jurassic.  It  is  a  natural 
system  in  Europe."  ....  "at  the  west  (United  States)  the  rocks 
called  Jurassic  merge  with  those  called  Trlassic.  In  India,  Med- 
licott  tells  us,  a  Jurassic  fauna  occurs  at  the  summit  of  a  great  nat- 
ural system  containing  a  Permian  fauna  near  its  base.  In  New 
Zealand,  according  to  Ilutton,  a  continuous  rock  system,  dissev- 
ered by  great  unconformities  from  the  system,  bears  at  top  fossils 
resembling  those  of  the  lower  Jurassic,  and  lower  down  fossils 
of  Trlassic  facies.  To  establish  a  Jurassic  system  in  either  of  these 
countries  it  is  necessary  to  divide  a  natural  system  ;  and  a  Jurassic 
system  thus  established  would  be  necessarily  artificial." 

All  this  argumentation  is  based  upon  the  incorrect  notion,  that 
the  Jurassic  system  in  Europe  is  limited  by  "stratigraphic  break" 
and  "great  unconformities."  In  the  Jura  Mountains,  where  the 
typical  Jurassic  system  has  been  founded,  and  taken  as  a  standard, 
the  Trlassic  and  tlie  Jurassic  systems  are  not  separated  by  any 
break  or  unconformities  of  any  sort,  and  according  to  Mr.  Gilbert's 
phraseology  merge  into  one  another.    The  Neocomian  is  also  in 


»i 


AMEaiCAN   QEOLOOICAL 


I       I 


concordance  of  stratification  over  the  Jurassic  in  many  parts  of 
Europe.  So  we  liave  exactly  tlie  same  relations  of  rocks  so  far 
as  breaks  are  concerned  in  Europe,  in  America,  in  Asia  and  in 
New  Zealand. 

A  great  system  io  marked  not  simply  by  "stratigrar^'.iic  break" 
or  "great  unconformity"  which  are  always  local,  but  by  differences 
in  fauna  and  differences  in  lithology,  which  are  a  great  deal  more 
general  ar  1  world- wide,  at  least  for  the  fauna. 

The  examples  chosen  by  Mr.  Gilbert  are  unfortunate.  In  the 
western  part  of  the  United  States,  the  Jurassic  does  not  merge  into 
the  Triassic,  but  is  as  fully  distinct  palteontologically  and  litholog- 
ically  as  in  the  Jura  mountains,  at  least  all  through  the  85th  par- 
allel of  latitude  where  I  have  discovered  them  in  1853.  In  India 
according  to  Medlicott,  the  Gondwana  system  is  probably  of  "flu- 
viatile  origin,"  consequently  an  exception  like  the  Weaklen ;  and 
in  New  Zealand  the  sequence  of  marine  fauna  is  correct,  and  shows 
the  generality  of  the  palaeontological  rules  extending  even  to  the 
antipodes. 

As  to  "  the  Chico-Tcjon  series  as  partly  Eocenal  and  partly  Cre- 
taceal,"  it  is  a  repetition  of  a  grent  mistake,  the  two  formations  be- 
longing to  the  Lower  Tertiary  system  and  not  to  the  Cretaceous, 
as  I  have  shown  repeatedly. 

The  Geological  Map  ok  Europe. 

In  a  previc  s  paper  "Notes  a  I'occasion  du  prochain  congres 
geologique  international,  etc."  (BtiUetin  /Soc.  Geol.  de  France,  tome 
XII,  p.  517,  Mai,  1884,  Paris),  I  have  shown  some  of  the  great 
objections  and  inconveniences  against  the  publication  of  a  "■Geo- 
logical Map  of  Europe"  by  the  Congress.  Mr.  Gilbert  opposes 
also  that  publication,  giving  excellent  reasons.  He  sa^-s :  "I  also 
regard  it  as  ill-advised  that  the  Congress  undertook  the  prepara- 
tion of  a  map  of  Europe,  for  that — if  more  than  a  work  of  com- 
pilation— is  a  work  ot  classification." 

Time  has  already  shown  the  exactness  and  importance  of  my 
obje(dions  and  criticism.  The  international  commission  admit  now, 
that  it  will  be  only  an  essay  — fs  I  said  in  1884 — instead  of  being 
a  standard  map.  The  number  of  years,  first  fixed  at  four  or  six 
years,  for  its  completion  and  full  issue,  is  now  extended  indefinite- 
ly ;  after  seven  years  not  a  single  one  of  the  forty-nine  sheets  hav- 
ing yet  been  published. 


i 


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CLASSIFICATION   AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


65 


i 


^4. 


A  first  difflculty,  which  appears  to  be  insurmountable  on  account 
of  its  nature,  i6  that  the  International  Commission  for  the  geolog- 
ical map  cannot  be  complete,  at  any  meeting  or  session,  although 
composed  of  only  eight  members.  Besides,  the  Congress  is  asked 
repeatedly  to  leave  almost  all  the  questions  relating  to  the  map  to 
the  discretion  of  the  commission,  and  finally  the  commission  itself 
is  obliged  to  leave  all  the  solutions  of  classification,  coloring,  etc., 
in  the  hands  of  the  Direction,  composed  only  of  Messrs.  Beyrich 
and  Hauchcorne,  at  Berlin,  or  more  exactly  of  Mr.  Beyrich  alone, 
Mr.  Hauchcorne  acting  only  as  assistant  for  the  material  and  man- 
ual part  of  the  work. 

In  reality,  the  geological  map  of  Europe  by  the  International 
Congress  will  be  the  work  of  a  single  man,  Mr.  Beyrich,  placed, 
very  much  to  the  detriment  of  the  future  progress  of  European 
geology,  under  the  shield  and  responsibility  of  the  Congress.  It 
is  the  greatest  act  of  authoritative  dictation  and  tyrannical  im- 
position, to  which  the  science  of  geology  has  ever  been  submitted. ^ 
As  the  matter  has  become  personal  instead  of  international,  it  is 
just  to  say  a  few  words  of  the  man  and  his  plans.  Mr.  Hein- 
rich  E.  Beyrich  is  not  well  prepared  for  such  direction ;  his  works 
are  only  palaeontological,  biographical,  bibliographical  and  on  the 
stratigraphy  of  a  special  question  very  limited,  the  stratigraphy  of 
the  Tertiary  series  of  German}  He  has  absolutely  no  practice  in 
dealing  with  geological  maps  of  any  kind,  embracing  great  or  even 
small  area,  nor  with  the  classification  and  nomenclature  of  any  geo- 
logical system,  except  the  Tertiary.  As  to  Mr.  Hauchcorne,  Di- 
rector of  the  School  of  Mines  of  Prussia,  he  is  only  an  administra- 
tor, almost  without  a  record  in  geology.  When  those  two  savants 
undertook  the  geological  map  of  Europe  for  the  Congress,  they  did 
not  know  what  difficulties  were  in  store  for  them,  and  Prussian- 
like, they  iiave  supplemented  their  deficiencies  by  a  complete  silence  ; 
never  answering  any  inquiries  of  any  member  of  the  Congress,  or 

'  The  map  has  been  conceded  to  tlic  iniblisliers,  T>.  Reimer  &  Co.,  of  Berlin,  as  a  per- 
petual pi  perty;  witli  the  un4«r8taii(ling  that  they  may  issue  new  editions  every  ten 
years  —  if  asked  IV"  by  tlii"  Congress,—  also  that  they  may  publish  a  hypsometvio  map, 
and  a  reduction  or  Tahleau  <Passi  iniilogi'  of  that  G(^o]og\cii\  map,  as  a  popular  or  school 
and  college  edition.  AH  the  sovcvumentsof  Europe  are  subscribers  for  nine  Imndred 
copies,  to  be  distributed  jn-ording  to  tlie  importance  of  the  different  states.  With  such 
arrangements,  it  will  be  absolutely  inipc<»«il)le  for  i>iiy  geologist  to  publit^h  a  geological 
map  of  Kuroi)e;  no  editor,  in  the  future,  will  ever  think  for  a  moment  to  compete  with 
Reimer  &  Co.  It  is  simply  a  monopoly  of  the  geologi<',al  ma))  of  Eui-ope.  an  act  which 
cannot  be  too  much  stigmatized  as  an  attempt  against  the  liberty  of  all  original  ob- 
eervers,  and  which  will  weigh  heavily  on  the  future  i)rogre.ss  of  geology. 


» 


■    .»' 


66 


AMERICAN  GEOLOGICAL 


of  the  Commission  nor  even  of  the  General  Secretary  of  the  Inter- 
national Commission,  an  unmistakable  proof  that  the  map  is,  and 
will  remain,  Bey  rich's  geological  map  of  Europe. 

Mr.  Beyrich  really  cares  only  about  three  or  four  points.  First, 
to  have  the  Prussian  division  of  the  Rhenish  Devonian  used  and 
accepted ;  second,  to  maintain  the  Jura  divisions  of  von  Buch  in 
three  great  etages;  and  third,  to  see  his  own  divisions  and  name  of 
Oligocene  accepted  and  placed  on  the  general  map  of  Europe.  To 
take  the  Rhenish  Devonian  as  the  type  for  all  Europe  is  a  mis- 
take ;  its  great  development  is  abnormal  and  an  exception — just  as 
the  enormous  Luxembourg  Lias  is  another  exception  —  and  what 
is  wanted  for  a  whole  continent  as  a  type  is  a  formation  which  is 
generally  found  in  eveiy  part  of  it,  with  the  same  or  nearly  the 
same  characteristics.  Dumont,  in  his  Carte  geologique  de  I'Eurojje^ 
1855-57,  has  already  attempted  the  extension  all  over  Europe  of 
the  Rhenish  Devonian  divided  in  three  great  etages,  and  Mr.  Bey- 
rich's  actual  attempu  will  not  be  attended  bj'  better  success.  It 
is  a  move  in  the  wrong  direction,  analogous  to  the  publication 
of  the  "  Geological  map  of  Europe"  by  Murchison  and  Nichols  in 
1856,  with  the  special  purpose  of  an;iihilating  the  Cambrian  of 
Sedgwick,  coloring  all  the  strata  containing  the  Primordial  fauna, 
the  second  fauna  and  the  third  fauna  as  Silurian. 

The  division  of  the  Jura  into  three  great  etages,  as  proposed 
by  von  Buch,  does  not  satisfy  eitlier  the  palaeontology,  or  the  li- 
thology  and  orography  of  the  Jurassic  system  all  over  Europe,  and 
more  especially  in  the  Jura  Mountains.  If  the  scale  of  the  map 
of  Mr.  Beyi'ich  were  at  least  1  :  320,000,  the  Jura  might  be  divid- 
ed into  four  great  etages  (Lias,  Lower  Oolite,  Oxfordian,  Upper 
Oolite)  ;  but  with  a  scale  of  1  :  500,000,  the  Jura  can  onl}'  be  di- 
vided into  two  great  etages  (1st,  Lias  —  Lower  Oolite;  and,  2nd, 
Oxfordian  —  Upper  Oolite) . 

As  to  the  Oligocene,  that  special  creation  of  Mr.  Beyrich,  it  is 
good  and  may  be  used  with  advantage  for  the  upper  part  of  the 
Lower  Tertiary  system. 

The  tendency  mauilested  at  Berlin  to  suppress  the  Dyas  as  a 
system,  and  to  join  it  as  an  etage  or  division  of  the  third  order 
only  of  the  Carboniferous,  is  simply  a  move  made  by  persons 
wanting  in  practical  knowledge,  and  which  has  not  the  smallest 
chance  to  remain  for  any  length  of  time  in  geology,  because  it  is 
at  variance  with  many  plain  facts  in  England,  France,  Germany, 


i 


i,*: 


CLASSIFICATION  AKD  NOMENCLATURE. 


67 


i 


^t 


Russia,  the  United  States,  etc.  It  is  a  momentary  opposition 
pi'orapted  by  personal  rivalry  and  jealousy.  The  Dyas  will  take 
care  of  itself. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  geological  map  of  Europe  of  the 
International  Congress,  after  :t  had  been  voted  and  accepted,  was 
not  given  to  Austria  instead  of  Prussia.  Austria  was  the  promoter 
of  it,  and  in  the  hands  of  Messrs.  Franz  Ritter  von  Hauer,  Ed- 
mund Mojsisovics  and  Melchior  Neuraayr,  it  would  have  been 
placed  at  least  under  the  direction  of  geologists  having  great  prac- 
tice, as  well  in  making  general  and  special  geological  maps,  as  in 
handling  classifications.  The  whole  affair  was  arranged  at  the 
meeting  of  Bologna,  and  Italy  wants  too  much  to  please  Prussia 
to  I  the  geological  map  of  Europe  go  to  its  proper  place  at  Vi- 
enna, where  is  the  best  geological  school  and  centre  now  existing 
all  the  world  over.  As  to  poor  France,  the  V(b  victis  was  rudely 
applied,  even  in  geology. 


XVI.   Conclusion. 

American  geological  classification  and  nomenclature  not  only 
have  not  been  benefited  or  iielped  in  any  way  by  Messrs.  J.  Hall, 
J.  D.  Dana,  W.  E.  Logan,  J.  D.  Whitney,  J.  S.  Newberry  and 
their  followers ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  they  have  been  built  up, 
little  by  little,  against  them  and  notwithstanding  their  most 
strenuous  opposition  and  obstruction.  If  their  opinions  had  been 
accepted  American  geology  would  he  now  fifty  years  behind  our 
actual  knowledge  ;  and  instead  of  having  the  "Tabular  View"  pre- 
sented in  tills  paper,  we  should  have  one  without  the  Taconic,  the 
Devonian  'le  Dyas,  the  Trias,  the  Jura,  the  Neocomian,  the  Eo- 
cene and  C^uatenmy  (California),  the  Ice  age  and  actual  glaciers  I 
That  is  to  say,  American  geology  would  have  remained  stationary 
with  as  few  and  insignilicant  changes  and  modifications  as  possi- 
ble, where  it  was  in  1837. 

"When  I  took  in  hand  the  Taconic  question  at  the  earnest 
request  of  Barrande  and  Emmons,  it  was  under  rather  discourag- 
ing circumstances.  Dr.  Einmons  had  just  left  Albany  for  North 
Carolina,  September,  1860,  never  to  return.  Barrande  was  too  far 
away  ;  he  waw  also  advanced  in  age  and  was  too  busy  with  his 
own  w'ljrk  in  Boliemia  to  pay  any  more  attention  to  the  Taconic, 


68 


AMERICAN   GEOLOGICAL 


after  the  publication  of  our  joint  paper  of  1860  and  of  his  Docu- 
ments  anciens  el  nouveau  stir  la  faune  primordiale  et  le  systSme 
Taconiqne  en  Amerique  in  1861. 

Billings  was  not  to  be  relied  upon,  on  account  of  an  incurable 
illness,  joined  to  his  peculiar  position  in  the  Canada  geological 
survey,  then  in  the  hands  of  Messrs.  Logan  and  Hunt ;  and  as  to 
Colonel  Jewett,  he  refused  all  his  life  to  publish  anything  of  his 
notes  and  observations  on  geology. 

So  I  was  left  alone  against  the  united  opposition  of  the  old  ad- 
versaries of  the  Taconic  system.  If  the  opposition  to  Emmons 
during  eighteen  years,  1842-1860,  was  of  a  nature  verging  on 
persecution,  it  was  much  more  so  with  me.  For  I  had  to  sustain 
the  whole  weight  of  the  most  unscrupulous  opposition,  not  only 
on  the  Taconic,  but  also  on  the  Mountain  limestone  of  the  Sierra 
de  Sandia  in  New  Mexico,  the  Dyas  of  the  Colorado  Chiquito  and 
Ne'raslia  City,  tlie  Trias  of  tlie  Canadian  river  and  of  the  Colo- 
rado Cliiqnito,  the  Jurassic  system  of  the  Tucumcari  area.  Canon 
Blanco,  Cuesta,  Lagiina.  Inscription  rocks,  and  of  Zuni,  the  Neo- 
comian  of  the  false  Washita  and  Canadian  rivers,  tlie  Tertiary  of 
Fort  Tejon  a^vl  Chico  creelt,  the  Quaternary  auriferous  gravels  and 
the  age  of  the  apparition  of  gold  in  Califoi-nia,  the  copper-bearing 
roclis  of  Keweenaw  Point  and  the  Lalie  Superior  sandstone,  and 
finally  on  the  Ice  ag-e. 

The  opposition  to  Dr.  Emmons  was  mere  child's  play,  in  com- 
parison with  wliat  Ims  been  done  against  me.  My  observations  ex- 
tending from  Quebec  to  Los  Angeles,  and  from  Lake  Superior  to 
Nebraslca,  Texas,  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  have  all  been  flatly 
and  systematically  contradicted  and  denied,  never  by  direct  ob- 
servations made  in  the  field,  but  simply  by  guesses,  false  determi- 
nations of  fossils  and  erroneous  notions  on  American  geology. 

My  name  has  been  ruled  out  of  the  list  of  authors  on  American 
geology  and  palaeontology,  by  the  successor  of  Agassiz  as  Profes- 
sor of  geology  at  the  Lawrence  Scientific  school  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity and  who  is  at  the  same  time  Secretary  of  the  Agassiz 
Museum,  in  wiiieh  are  preserved  many  of  my  collections,  made  in 
America  and  in  Europe  ;  and  «ome  of  the  rarest  and  best  speci- 
mens of  fossils  I  have  met  within  my  explorations  {List  of  Amer- 
ican authors  in  Geology  and  Paloiontology,  by  J.  D.  Whitney.  Li- 
brary of  Harvard  University,  Bibliographical  contributions  ;  edited 


W^i. 


CLASSIFICATION   AND   NOMENCLATURE. 


69 


by  Justin  Winsor,  No.  15,  republished  from  the  Bulletin  of  Har- 
vard  University,  4'°,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  1882). 

To  all  the  adversaries  of  Dr.  Emmons  a  dozen  at  least  of  other 
opponents  have  been  added,  always  under  the  lead  of  Messrs. 
James  Hall,  James  D.  Dana  and  J.  S.  Newberry.  Never  has  such 
a  united  opposition  been  offered  to  the  worlds  of  a  single  geolo- 
gist, during  so  long  a  period,  almost  forty  years.  It  is  unpar- 
alleled and  unique  not  only  on  account  of  its  duration,  but  also  for 
its  character  of  exceptional  bitterness  and  animosity  unequalled  in 
geology. 

Undisturbed  in  their  assertions,  my  adversaries  have  the  field 
all  to  themselves,  and  with  iron  rod  in  hand  they  have  assumed  the 
whole  control  of  American  geology ;  denying  plain  facts,  giving 
false  determination  and  false  identifications  of  fossils,  incorrect 
sections,  geological  maps  with  false  and  incomplete  classifications, 
and  nomenclatures  so  imperfect  as  to  be  monstrously  mutilated. 

They  have  gone  so  far  in  their  blind  opposition,  as  to  use  as 
tools  against  me  specimens  collected  by  me  and  my  field  notes 
written  during  my  explorations  from  the  Mississippi  river  to  the 
Pacific  shores  in  1853-54,  and  put  honestly  into  their  hands  by  my 
friends.  Generals  A.  A.  Humphreys  and  A.  W.  Whipple,  in  order 
to  secure  my  discoveries. 

Messrs.  James  Hall  and  W.  P.  Blake  have  erroneously  denied 
the  most  careful,  diflScult  and  sagacious  observations  I  have  made, 
aggravating  as  much  as  it  was  in  their  power  the  wrong  done  me 
by  the  tyrannical  and  most  unjustifiable  action  of  the  famous  Jef- 
ferson Davis,  who  as  Secretary  of  War  deprived  me  of  the  right  of 
making  my  final  report  —  a  process  absolutely  without  precedent 
in  tlje  history  of  geology,  and  which  places  James  Hall,  "W.  P. 
Blake  and  Jefferson  Davis  in  their  true  and  unenviable  lisht. 

There  is  not  a  single  question  in  American  geology  which  has  not 
been  submitted  to  their  deadly  influence.  Even  the  history  of  dis- 
coveries has  been  falsified  with  the  greatest  ignorance  and  parti- 
ality, and  all  that  in  order  to  please  their  own  fancies,  and  to  shield 
their  errors  and  mistakes.  They  have  treated  all  questions  with- 
out any  knowledge  whatever  of  coniparative  geology,  comparative 
palaeontology  or  comparative  lithology,  not  only  in  Europe  and 
other  parts  of  the  world,  but  even  within  North  America.  Dis- 
courtesy marks  the  whole  proceeding ;  and  the  blindness  of  jeal- 


70 


AMERICAN  OBOLOaiOAL 


ousy  has  seldom  if  ever — in  science  —  shown  such  an  array  of  rep- 
r<  hensible  acts,  and  persistence  in  wrong-doing. 

Two  geologists  alone  have  had  to  sustain  during  forty-five 
years  the  repeated  assault  of  the  most  influential  scientific  period- 
ical, The  American  Journal  of  Science,  led  by  its  principal  editor 
Mr.  J.  D.  Dana,  with  the  support  of  Mr.  J.  Hall  and  a  whole 
staff  of  contributors.  Sir  Roderick  L.  Murchison  among  them. 
What  an  attempt  against  the  liberty  of  opinions  and  observations, 
and  truly  against  the  progress  of  geology  1 

Notwithstanding  such  a  powerful  obstacle,  American  geology 
has  progressed,  thanks  to  a  few  independent  and  honest  observers, 
who  after  all  have  never  been  entirely  extinguished,  nor  paralyzed 
by  the  autocratic  dictation  and  manoeuvring  of  a  dominant  party 
whose  rules  have  been  to  oppose  and  even  suppress  all  the  observa- 
tions not  originated  or  nursed  among  its  members. 

I  have  done  all  that  was  in  my  power  to  call  the  attention  of 
geologists,  as  well  in  America  as  in  Europe,  to  many  of  the  most 
important  questions  offered  by  the  North  American  continent ;  and 
if  I  have  not  entirely  succeeded  in  freeing  American  geology  of 
the  dictations  of  an  aristocracy  so  baneful  and  demoralizing, 
which  has  opposed  almost  all  the  progress,  and  prevented  as  much 
as  it  could  the  expression  of  all  original  opinions  and  observa- 
tions, I  hope,  however,  that  I  have  not  suffered  in  vain,  and  that 
the  time  has  now  come  when  all  geologists,  on  the  American  con- 
tinent, will  be  able  to  observe  and  state  their  results  without  fear 
of  being  ostracized  and  treated  as  a  paria,  as  was  the  common  fate 
of  Dr.  E.  Emmons  and  myself.  I  do  not  complain,  however,  for 
after  all  it  is  no  ordinary  compliment  to  have  aroused  the  jealous 
rancor  and  ire  of  all  the  geologists  who  have  contrived  to  monopolize 
and  control  in  their  personal  interests  the  researches  executed  in 
both  hemispheres,  and  to  have  passed  my  life,  almost  without  re- 
muneration of  any  sort,  working  all  the  time  for  truth,  progress, 
honesty  and  justice. 

I  must  add,  as  a  great  compensation,  that  I  have  enjoyed  the 
confidence,  the  trust,  and  often  the  intimate  friendship  of  all  the 
best  and  most  honest  geologists  and  palaeontologists.  Quoting 
onl}'  the  dead  :  Barrande,  Lyell,  Louis  Agasslz,  Ebenezer  Emmons, 
Alcide  d'Orbigny,  Pictet,  Deshayes,  d'Oinalius  d'Halloy,  Andre 
Dumont,    de    Koninck,    Boue,    de   Verneuil,   Delesse,    Fournet, 


CLASSIFICATION  AND  NOMENCLATURE. 


71 


A 


Griiner,  Edouard  Lartet,  Gcrvais,  Jukes,  Jolin  Phillips,  Thomas 
Davidson,  John  Morris,  Thomas  Wright,  Charles  T.  Jackson, 
S.  Morton,  T.  Conrad,  Thomas  Oldham,  Stoliczka,  Auerbach, 
Grewingk,  Oppel,  von  Hochsletter,  von  Haast,  Haidinger,  Thur- 
man,  Merian,  Escher  von  der  Linth,  Studcr,  Heer,  Bartolomeo 
Gastaldi,  and  Quintino  Sella.  Besides,  I  have  the  privilege  and 
the  rare  honor  of  having  received  approbation,  advice,  and  even 
public  quotations  of  ray  researches,  at  the  beginning  of  my  career 
as  a  geologist,  from  such  great  and  original  observers  as  Alexandre 
Brongniart,  Constant  Frevost,  F.  Louis  A.  Cordier,  Alexandre 
von  Humboldt,  Leopold  von  Buch  and  Jean  de  Charpentier. 


ji.iyk 


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